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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Ckap.^L Copyright No._ 

Shelf_ 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

WHITE HOUSE LIBRARY 
DEPOSIT 







































- 

































































































THE COMPLETE WRITINGS OF 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

9 lutO 0 irapfj tuition 

WITH PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND FACSIMILES 
IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES 


VOLUME VII 








THIS EDITION OF THE 
WRITINGS OF 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
IS LIMITED 
TO FIVE HUNDRED 
SIGNED AND NUMBERED 
COPIES 

OF WHICH THIS IS 


% 












































































































































































































” 


— 


































‘ « This has done me good 





































































THE WRITINGS OF 















HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

















THE HOUSE OF THE 
SEVEN GABLES., 

A ROMANCE 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
C&e mtoemlie ptegg, Cambttoffe 
MDCCCC 

i " 


Q « * O I 

«7 JL-fc ♦ > i 


L.ibt’wrv of Conore«» 

1*0 Copies Keceived 

DEC 20 1900 

Copyright entry 

DEC IO 1900 

No 

SECOND COPY 

(Delivered to 

OROEtt DIVISION 

HFC «4 1900 


fS )BS 0 

i/ol."7 
C 70 f / 


COPYRIGHT, I9OO, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


LC Control Number 



2003 536502 







TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


• 


• 


• 

ix 

author’s PREFACE 

• 


• 


• 


xxi 

I. 

THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


• 


• 

i 

II. 

THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


• 


• 


39 

III. 

THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


• 


• 


• 

57 

IV. 

A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

• 


• 


78 

V. 

MAY AND NOVEMBER . 


• 


• 


• 

99 

VI. 

maule’s WELL 

• 


• 


• 


,123 

VII. 

THE GUEST 


• 


• 


• 

140 

VIII. 

THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


• 


• 


165 

IX. 

CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE . 


• 


• 


• 

191 

X. 

THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 



• 


• 


209 

XI. 

THE ARCHED WINDOW 


• 


• 


• 

229 

XII. 

THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 

• 


• 


• 


250 

XIII. 

ALICE PYNCHEON 


• 


• 


• 

271 

XIV. 

phcebe’s GOOD-BY 

• 


• 


• 


3°7 

XV. 

THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


• 


• 


• 

3 2 4 

XVI. 

Clifford’s chamber 

• 


• 


• 


349 

XVII. 

THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 

• 


• 


• 

368 

XVIII. 

GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

• 


• 


• 


39 ° 

XIX. 

Alice’s posies 


• 


• 


• 

414 

XX. 

THE FLOWER OF EDEN 

• 


• 


• 


438 

XXI. 

THE DEPARTURE . 


• 


• 


• 

452 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

“This has done me good” (page 158) 

Maude Cowles 

Frontispiece 

Vignette on Engraved Title-page: A 

SQUARE AND STURDY LITTLE URCHIN 

Maude Cowles . 

A LITTLE WITHDRAWN FROM THE LINE OF THE 

street. Genevieve Cowles 12 

Can it have been an early lover ? 

Maude Cowles . 42 

A MISCELLANEOUS OLD GENTLEMAN 

Maude Cowles . 88 

“You odd little chicken” Genevieve Cowles 128 

In keeping with the dismal and bitter 

weather. Maude Cowles . 272 

A MYSTERY ABOUT THE PICTURE 

Genevieve Cowles 408 

He PERSISTED IN HIS MELODIOUS APPEALS 

Genevieve Cowles 430 










INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


After the publication of The Scarlet Letter , 
the Hawthornes moved from Salem to Lenox, 
where they stayed for a year and a half, the cot¬ 
tage which they occupied being familiarly called 
the Red House. The house was burned in 1890, 
but by that time had become a spot to which 
literary pilgrimages were made. The scene was 
thus described by a Stockbridge paper not long 
after the fire : — 

“ Drive along a lonely winding road through 
a homely New England district several hundred 
yards west of the pretentious mansions of Stock- 
bridge, pass through a breezy open patch of 
pines, and one comes to a characteristic hillside 
New England orchard, the branches of whose 
trees just now are bright with ripening red ap¬ 
ples. On the hill-slope in the middle of the 
orchard and overlooking the famous c Stock- 
bridge Bowl ’ — a round deep tarn among the 
hills — are the brick cellar walls and brick un¬ 
derpinning of what was a very humble dwelling 
— the Hawthorne Cottage. About the ruins 
is a quiet, modest. New England neighborhood. 
There is not much to see at the site of the Haw¬ 
thorne Cottage, yet every day fashionable folk 
ix 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

from New York and Boston and a score of 
western cities drive thither with fine equipages 
and jingling harness, halt, and look curiously 
for a minute or two at the green turf of the 
dooryard and the crumbling brick walls of the 
cottage site.” 

Mrs. Lathrop reports her father as saying 
that it was difficult for him to write in the pre¬ 
sence of such a view as the little “ Red House ” 
commanded; but certainly the conditions under 
which he wrote otherwise were most favorable. 
Fame had come to him, and with it the sense of 
stability in fortune. Here his youngest child 
was born, and all his children led a free, joyous 
life. Health reigned in the household, and the 
country society was of a high order, while the 
author of repute was now drawing to himself 
friends in the guild. Mrs. Hawthorne writes 
to her mother : — 

“ Just now, Dr. Holmes and Mr. Upham’s 
son Charles drove up. They came in, a few 
moments. First came Dr. Holmes, to peep at 
the Lake through the boudoir window, — for 
he was afraid to leave the horse, even tied; then 
he went out for Charles to come in ; and Mr. 
Hawthorne insisted upon holding the horse, 
and having them both come in. When Dr. 
Holmes went back, he laughed to see Mr. Haw¬ 
thorne at his horse’s head, and exclaimed, f Is 
there another man in all America who ever had 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


so great an honor, as to have the author of The 
Scarlet Letter hold his horse ? * ” 

It was in the early summer of 1850 that the 
removal to Lenox was made, but it was not till 
August that The House of Seven Gables was be¬ 
gun, and the rest of the year was given to the 
work. Mrs. Hawthorne writes in her journal of 
the successive readings of the book to which she 
listened. 

cc January 13, 1851. In the evening my hus¬ 
band said he should begin to read his book. O 
joy unspeakable ! 

cc 14th. When the children had gone to bed, 
my husband took his manuscript again. I am 
always so dazzled and bewildered with the rich¬ 
ness of beauty in his productions, that I look 
forward to a second reading during which I can 
ponder and muse. The reading closed with a 
legend, so graphic, so powerful, with such a strain 
of grace and witchery through it, that I seemed 
to be in a trance. Such a vision as Alice, with 
so few touches, such a real existence ! The 
sturdy, handsome, and strong Maule ; the in¬ 
evitable fate, c the innocent suffering for the 
guilty ,* seemingly so dark, yet so clear a law ! 

“ 15th. Sewed all day, thinking only of 
Maule’s Well. The sunset was a great, red 
ball of fire. In the evening, the manuscript 
was again read from. How ever more wonder¬ 
ful ! How transparent are all events in life to 
xi 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


my husband’s awful power of insight; and how 
he perpetually brings up out of the muddied 
wells the pearl of price ! ” 

On the 26th the book was finished, and the 
next day she wrote to her mother : “ The House 
of the Seven Gables was finished yesterday. Mr. 
Hawthorne read me the close, last evening. 
There is unspeakable grace and beauty in the 
conclusion, throwing back upon the sterner 
tragedy of the commencement an ethereal light, 
and a dear home-loveliness and satisfaction. 
How you will enjoy the book, — its depth of 
wisdom, its high tone, the flowers of Paradise 
scattered over all the dark places, the sweet wall¬ 
flower scent of Phoebe’s character, the wonder¬ 
ful pathos and charm of old Uncle Venner. I 
only wish you could have heard the Poet sing 
his own song, as I did ; but yet the book needs 
no adventitious aid, — it makes its own music, 
for I read it all over again to myself yesterday, 
except the last three chapters.” 

This was the record of the first and nearest 
reader. The author himself chronicled the pro¬ 
gress of the book and his own attitude toward 
it in a series of communications to his publish¬ 
ers. On the 1st of October, 1850, he wrote : 
“ I sha’n’t have the next story ready by No¬ 
vember, for I am never good for anything in the 
literary way till after the first autumnal frost, 
which has somewhat such an effect on my ima- 
xii 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


gination that it does on the foliage here about 
me, — multiplying and brightening its hues ; 
though they are likely to be sober and shabby 
enough after all.” A month later, when he was 
deep in his work, he wrote in a more intimate 
way : — 

“ I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I 
had hoped. I find the book requires more 
care and thought than The Scarlet Letter; also 
I have to wait oftener for a mood. The Scar¬ 
let Letter being all in one tone, I had only to 
get my pitch, and could then go on intermina¬ 
bly. Many passages of this book ought to be 
finished with the minuteness of a Dutch pic¬ 
ture, in order to give them their proper effect. 
Sometimes, when tired of it, it strikes me that the 
whole is an absurdity, from beginning to end ; 
but the fact is, in writing a romance, a man is 
always, or ought to be, careering on the utmost 
verge of a precipitous absurdity, and the skill 
lies in coming as close as possible, without ac¬ 
tually tumbling over. My prevailing idea is, 
that the book ought to succeed better than The 
Scarlet Letter , though I have no idea that it 
will.” 

On the 12th of January, 1851, the day be¬ 
fore he began reading it aloud to his wife, he 
wrote: “ My House of the Seven Gables is, so 
to speak, finished; only I am hammering away 
a little at the roof, and doing up a few odd jobs 
xiii 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


that were left incomplete; " and when at the end 
of the month he sent his manuscript on, he 
wrote : “ It has met with extraordinary success 
from that portion of the public to whose judg¬ 
ment it has been submitted, viz., from my wife. 
I likewise prefer it to The Scarlet Letter; but 
an author's opinion of his book just after com¬ 
pleting it is worth little or nothing, he be¬ 
ing then in the hot or cold fit of a fever, and 
certain to rate it too high or too low. It has 
undoubtedly one disadvantage, in being brought 
so close to the present time ; whereby its ro¬ 
mantic improbabilities become more glaring." 

To his friend Bridge he wrote just as the 
book was published: <c The House of the Seven 
Gables, in my opinion, is better than The Scar¬ 
let Letter , but I should not wonder if I had re¬ 
fined upon the principal character a little too 
much for popular appreciation ; nor if the ro¬ 
mance of the book should be found somewhat 
at odds with the humble and familiar scenery 
in which I invest it. But I feel that portions 
of it are as good as anything I can hope to 
write, and the publisher speaks encouragingly 
of its success." And four months later, when 
the book had been read and reviewed, and Haw¬ 
thorne could get what he might from this re¬ 
flex action, he wrote to the same friend: 
“ Why did you not write and tell me how you 
liked, or how you did not like. The House of 
xiv 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


the Seven Gables ? Did you feel shy of ex¬ 
pressing an unfavorable opinion? It would 
not have hurt me in the least, though I am 
always glad to please you; but I rather think 
I have reached that stage when I do not care, 
very essentially one way or the other, for any¬ 
body's opinion on any one production. On 
this last romance, for instance, I have heard 
and seen such diversity of judgment that I 
should be altogether bewildered if I attempted 
to strike a balance. So I take nobody's esti¬ 
mate unless it happens to agree with my own. 
I think it a work more characteristic of my 
mind, and more proper and natural for me to 
write, than The Scarlet Letter; but for that 
very reason less likely to interest the public. 
Nevertheless, it appears to have sold better 
than the former, and, I think, is more sure of 
retaining the ground it acquires." 

He takes the same view in a letter written 
at the same time to his friend William B. Pike. 
“ Why did you not express your opinion of 
The House of the Seven Gables , which I sent 
you ? I suppose you were afraid of hurting 
my feelings by disapproval; but you need not 
have been. I should receive friendly censure 
with just as much equanimity as if it were 
praise; though certainly I had rather you 
would like the book than not. At any rate, it 
has sold finely, and seems to have pleased a 

XV 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


good many people better than the others, and 
I must confess that I myself am among the 
number. It is more characteristic of the author, 
and a more natural book for me to write, than 
The Scarlet Letter was.” 

This repeated expression by Hawthorne that 
The House of the Seven Gables was a more “ nat¬ 
ural ” book for him to write than The Scarlet 
Letter certainly throws light on his judgment 
of himself. Though the expression is not am¬ 
plified, it is perhaps not unreasonable to sup¬ 
pose that Hawthorne in this sunny period of 
his life dwelt with more genuine interest on the 
more human and less exceptional side of men 
and women; for in spite of the tragic element 
in this book, the general impression is perhaps 
of more constant beauty in life and nature than 
in any other of his novels. The element of 
sweetness and delicacy which he introduces in 
the character of Phoebe, the humor of Ned 
Higgins, the pathos of Hepzibah, and the 
delightful pictures of the garden and poultry 
yard, all serve to emphasize that happy strain in 
Hawthorne’s nature which his journals, espe¬ 
cially when he is dealing with childhood, make 
evident. “ Phoebe ” was one of his playful 
names for his wife. 

Yet the central motif of the story connects 
itself also with the strain of fatalism which had 
a fascination for Hawthorne, and corresponded 
xvi 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


to some latent instinct in his nature. In his 
own family history there was an ancestor who 
had served as a judge in the period of witch¬ 
craft delusion, and in the exercise of his judicial 
office is said to have drawn down upon himself 
and his descendants a malediction ; certain it 
is that poverty and ill fortune rested after that 
on the family; and there was an incident, simi¬ 
lar to that occurring in the Pyncheon family, in 
the loss of title-deeds to property which might 
otherwise have enriched the Hawthornes. How 
deeply all these things affected Hawthorne is 
most strongly seen in his recurrence again and 
again to the legend of the bloody footstep. 

There was current a report that in the per¬ 
son of Judge Pyncheon Hawthorne had wreaked 
his vengeance on a Salem gentleman who had 
been inimical to him in his political position, 
but the name itself of the character got him 
into a scrape. As he wrote to his sister Louisa 
shortly after the book appeared: “ I have al¬ 
most a challenge from a gentleman who com¬ 
plains of me for introducing his grandfather, 
Judge Pyncheon. It seems there was really a 
Pyncheon family formerly resident in Salem, 
and one of them bore the title of Judge, and 
was a Tory at the time of the Revolution,— 
with which facts I was entirely unacquainted. 
I pacified the gentleman by a letter.” The let¬ 
ter has since been printed, and is as follows : — 
xvii 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


Lenox, May 3, 1851. 

Sir, — It pains me to learn that I have 
given you what I am content to acknowledge a 
reasonable ground of offence, by borrowing the 
name of the Pyncheon family for my fictitious 
purposes in The House of the Seven Gables. It 
never occurred to me, however, that the name 
was not as much the property of a romance 
writer as that of Smith, for instance ; while its 
unhackneyed singularity, and a certain inde¬ 
scribable fitness to the tone of my work, gave it 
a value which no other of the many surnames 
which suggested themselves to me seemed to 
possess. Writing the book at a distance from 
Salem, I had no opportunity for consulting 
ancient records or the recollections of aged per¬ 
sons ; and I beg you to believe that I was 
wholly unaware until the receipt of your letter 
that the Pyncheons, at so recent a period as 
you mention, if at any former one, had been 
residents of that place. Had this fact been 
within my knowledge, and especially had I 
known that any member of the family had borne 
the title of Judge, I should certainly have con¬ 
sidered it discourteous and unwarrantable to 
make free with the name. I would further say 
that I intended no allusion to any Pyncheon 
now or at any previous period extant; that I 
had never heard anything to the discredit, in the 
slightest degree, of this old and respectable race, 
xviii 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


and that I give the fullest credence to your 
testimony in favor of your grandfather, Judge 
Pyncheon, and greatly regret that I should have 
seemed to sully his honorable name by plas¬ 
tering upon it an imaginary villain. 

You suggest that reparation is due for these 
injuries of my pen, but point out no mode in 
which it may be practicable. It is my own 
opinion that no real harm has been done, in¬ 
asmuch as I enter a protest in the preface of 
The House of the Seven Gables against the nar¬ 
rative and the personages being considered as 
other than imaginary. But, since it appears 
otherwise to you, no better course occurs to me 
than to put this letter at your disposal, to be 
used in such manner as a proper regard to your 
family honor may be thought to demand. 

Respectfully, Sir, Your obedient servant, 
Nath’l Hawthorne. 

As to the claimants for the original title to 
the House itself, it would seem as if readers 
went about counting the gables on houses in 
Salem and even in Pittsfield, with the determin¬ 
ation to limit the romancer's power in this par¬ 
ticular to the photographing of some actual 
structure, and that in spite of Hawthorne’s 
good-natured caution in his preface. 

xix 
















































































AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

When a writer calls his work a Romance, 
it need hardly be observed that he wishes to 
claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion 
and material, which he would not have felt him¬ 
self entitled to assume had he professed to be 
writing a Novel. The latter form of composi¬ 
tion is presumed to aim at a very minute fidel¬ 
ity, not merely to the possible, but to the prob¬ 
able and ordinary course of man's experience. 
The former—while, as a work of art, it must 
rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins 
unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from 
the truth of the human heart — has fairly a 
right to present that truth under circumstances,, 
to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing 
or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so 
manage his atmospherical medium as to bring 
out or mellow the lights and deepen and en¬ 
rich the shadows of the picture. He will be 
wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use 
of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to 
mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, deli¬ 
cate, and evanescent flavor, than as any portion 
of the actual substance of the dish offered to the 
public. He can hardly be said, however, to 
xxi 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


commit a literary crime even if he disregard this 
caution. 

In the present work, the author has proposed 
to himself — but with what success, fortunately, 
it is not for him to judge — to keep undeviat- 
ingly within his immunities. The point of view 
in which this tale comes under the Romantic 
definition lies in the attempt to connect a by¬ 
gone time with the very present that is flitting 
away from us. It is a legend prolonging itself, 
from an epoch now gray in the distance, down 
into our own broad daylight, and bringing 
along with it some of its legendary mist, which 
the reader, according to his pleasure, may either 
disregard, or allow it to float almost impercep¬ 
tibly about the characters and events for the 
sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it 
may be, is woven of so humble a texture as to 
require this advantage, and, at the same time, to 
render it the more difficult of attainment. 

Many writers lay very great stress upon 
some definite moral purpose, at which they 
profess to aim their works. Not to be deficient 
in this particular, the author has provided him¬ 
self with a moral, — the truth, namely, that 
the wrong-doing of one generation lives into 
the successive ones, and, divesting itself of 
every temporary advantage, becomes a pure 
and uncontrollable mischief; and he would feel 
it a singular gratification if this romance might 
xxii 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


effectually convince mankind — or, indeed, any 
one man — of the folly of tumbling down an 
avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on 
the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby 
to maim and crush them, until the accumulated 
mass shall be scattered abroad in its original 
atoms. In good faith, however, he is not suf¬ 
ficiently imaginative to flatter himself with the 
slightest hope of this kind. When romances 
do really teach anything, or produce any effec¬ 
tive operation, it is usually through a far more 
subtile process than the ostensible one. The 
author has considered it hardly worth his while, 
therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with 
its moral as with an iron rod, — or, rather, as 
by sticking a pin through a butterfly, — thus 
at once depriving it of life, and causing it to 
stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. 
A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully 
wrought out, brightening at every step, and 
crowning the final development of a work of 
fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never 
any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the 
last page than at the first. 

The reader may perhaps choose to assign an 
actual locality to the imaginary events of this 
narrative. If permitted by the historical con¬ 
nection, — which, though slight, was essential to 
his plan,— the author would very willingly have 
avoided anything of this nature. Not to speak 
xxiii 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


of other objections, it exposes the romance to 
an inflexible and exceedingly dangerous species 
of criticism, by bringing his fancy pictures al¬ 
most into positive contact with the realities of 
the moment. It has been no part of his ob¬ 
ject, however, to describe local manners, nor 
in any way to meddle with the characteristics of 
a community for whom he cherishes a proper 
respect and a natural regard. He trusts not 
to be considered as unpardonably offending by 
laying out a street that infringes upon nobody’s 
private rights, and appropriating a lot of land 
which had no visible owner, and building a 
house of materials long in use for constructing 
castles in the air. The personages of the tale 

— though they give themselves, out to be of 
ancient stability and considerable prominence 

— are really of the author’s own making, or, 
at all events, of his own mixing; their virtues 
can shed no lustre, nor their defects redound, 
in the remotest degree, to the discredit of the 
venerable town of which they profess to be in¬ 
habitants. He would be glad, therefore, if— 
especially in the quarter to which he alludes — 
the book may be read strictly as a Romance, 
having a great deal more to do with the clouds 
overhead than with any portion of the actual 
soil of the County of Essex. 

Lenox, January 27, 1851. 

xxiv 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN 
GABLES 

i 

THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

H ALFWAY down a by-street of one 
of our New England towns stands a 
rusty wooden house, with seven acutely 
peaked gables, facing towards various points 
of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney 
in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; 
the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an 
elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before 
the door, is familiar to every town-born child 
by the title of the Pyncheon Elm. On my 
occasional visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom 
failed to turn down Pyncheon Street, for the 
sake of passing through the shadow of these 
two antiquities, — the great elm-tree and the 
weather-beaten edifice. 

The aspect of the venerable mansion has 
always affected me like a human countenance, 
bearing the traces not merely of outward storm 
and sunshine, but expressive, also, of the long 

i 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicis¬ 
situdes that have passed within. Were these 
to be worthily recounted, they would form a 
narrative of no small interest and instruction, 
and possessing, moreover, a certain remarka¬ 
ble unity, which might almost seem the result 
of artistic arrangement. But the story would 
include a chain of events extending over the 
better part of two centuries, and, written out 
with reasonable amplitude, would fill a bigger 
folio volume, or a longer series of duodecimos, 
than could prudently be appropriated to the 
annals of all New England during a similar 
period. It consequently becomes imperative 
to make short work with most of the tradition¬ 
ary lore of which the old Pyncheon House, 
otherwise known as the House of die Seven 
Gables, has been the theme. With a brief 
sketch, therefore, of the circumstances amid 
which the foundation of the house was laid, and 
a rapid glimpse at its quaint exterior, as it grew 
black in the prevalent east wind, — pointing, 
too, here and there, at some spot of more 
verdant mossiness on its roof and walls, — we 
shall commence the real action of our tale at 
an epoch not very remote from the present day. 
Still, there will be a connection with the long 
past — a reference to forgotten events and 
personages, and to manners, feelings, and opin¬ 
ions, almost or wholly obsolete — which, if 
2 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


adequately translated to the reader, would serve 
to illustrate how much of old material goes to 
make up the freshest novelty of human life. 
Hence, too, might be drawn a weighty lesson 
from the little-regarded truth, that the act of 
the passing generation is the germ which may 
and must produce good or evil fruit in a far- 
distant time; that, together with the seed of 
the merely temporary crop, which mortals term 
expediency, they inevitably sow the acorns of a 
more enduring growth, which may darkly over¬ 
shadow their posterity. 

The House of the Seven Gables, antique as 
it now looks, was not the first habitation erected 
by civilized man on precisely the same spot of 
ground. Pyncheon Street formerly bore the 
humbler appellation of Maule’s Lane, from the 
name of the original occupant of the soil, before 
whose cottage door it was a cow-path. A nat¬ 
ural spring of soft and pleasant water — a rare 
treasure on the sea-girt peninsula where the 
Puritan settlement was made — had early in¬ 
duced Matthew Maule to build a hut, shaggy 
with thatch, at this point, although somewhat 
too remote from what was then the centre of 
the village. In the growth of the town, how¬ 
ever, after some thirty or forty years, the site 
covered by this rude hovel had become exceed¬ 
ingly desirable in the eyes of a prominent and 
powerful personage, who asserted plausible 
3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

claims to the proprietorship of this and a large 
adjacent tract of land, on the strength of a grant 
from the legislature. Colonel Pyncheon, the 
claimant, as we gather from whatever traits of 
him are preserved, was characterized by an iron 
energy of purpose. Matthew Maule, on the 
other hand, though an obscure man, was stub¬ 
born in the defence of what he considered his 
right; and, for several years, he succeeded in 
protecting the acre or two of earth which, with 
his own toil, he had hewn out of the primeval 
forest, to be his garden ground and homestead. 
No written record of this dispute is known to 
be in existence. Our acquaintance with the 
whole subject is derived chiefly from tradition. 
It would be bold, therefore, and possibly unjust, 
to venture a decisive opinion as to its merits; 
although it appears to have been at least a mat¬ 
ter of doubt, whether Colonel Pyncheon’s claim 
were not unduly stretched, in order to make it 
cover the small metes and bounds of Matthew 
Maule. What greatly strengthens such a sus¬ 
picion is the fact that this controversy between 
two ill-matched antagonists — at a period, more¬ 
over, laud it as we may, when personal influ¬ 
ence had far more weight than now — remained 
for years undecided, and came to a close only 
with the death of the party occupying the dis¬ 
puted soil. The mode of his death, too, affects 
the mind differently, in our day, from what it 
4 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

did a century and a half ago. It was a death 
that blasted with strange horror the humble 
name of the dweller in the cottage, and made 
it seem almost a religious act to drive the 
plough over the little area of his habitation, and 
obliterate his place and memory from among 
men. 

Old Matthew Maule, in a word, was exe¬ 
cuted for the crime of witchcraft. He was one 
of the martyrs to that terrible delusion, which 
should teach us, among its other morals, that 
the influential classes, and those who take upon 
themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully 
liable to all the passionate error that has ever 
characterized the maddest mob. Clergymen, 
judges, statesmen, — the wisest, calmest, holi¬ 
est persons of their day, — stood in the inner 
circle round about the gallows, loudest to ap¬ 
plaud the work of blood, latest to confess them¬ 
selves miserably deceived. If any one part of 
their proceedings can be said to deserve less 
blame than another, it was the singular indis¬ 
crimination with which they persecuted, not 
merely the poor and aged, as in former judicial 
massacres, but people of all ranks; their own 
equals, brethren, and wives. Amid the disor¬ 
der of such various ruin, it is not strange that a 
man of inconsiderable note, like Maule, should 
have trodden the martyr’s path to the hill of 
execution almost unremarked in the throng of 
5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


his fellow sufferers. But, in after days, when 
the frenzy of that hideous epoch had subsided, 
it was remembered how loudly Colonel Pyn- 
cheon had joined in the general cry, to purge 
the land from witchcraft; nor did it fail to 
be whispered, that there was an invidious acri¬ 
mony in the zeal with which he had sought the 
condemnation of Matthew Maule. It was well 
known that the victim had recognized the bit¬ 
terness of personal enmity in his persecutor's 
conduct towards him, and that he declared him¬ 
self hunted to death for his spoil. At the mo¬ 
ment of execution — with the halter about his 
neck, and while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horse¬ 
back, grimly gazing at the scene — Maule had 
addressed him from the scaffold, and uttered 
a prophecy, of which history, as well as fire¬ 
side tradition, has preserved the very words. 
“ God," said the dying man, pointing his finger, 
with a ghastly look, at the undismayed counte¬ 
nance of his enemy, — “ God will give him 
blood to drink ! ” 

After the reputed wizard's death, his hum¬ 
ble homestead had fallen an easy spoil into 
Colonel Pyncheon’s grasp. When it was un¬ 
derstood, however, that the colonel intended to 
erect a family mansion — spacious, ponderously 
framed of oaken timber, and calculated to en¬ 
dure for many generations of his posterity — 
over the spot first covered by the log-built hut 
6 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


of Matthew Maule, there was much shaking of 
the head among the village gossips. Without 
absolutely expressing a doubt whether the stal¬ 
wart Puritan had acted as a man of conscience 
and integrity throughout the proceedings which 
have been sketched, they, nevertheless, hinted 
that he was about to build his house over an 
unquiet grave. His home would include the 
home of the dead and buried wizard, and would 
thus afford the ghost of the latter a kind of 
privilege to haunt its new apartments, and the 
chambers into which future bridegrooms were 
to lead their brides, and where children of the 
Pyncheon blood were to be born. The terror 
and ugliness of Maule’s crime, and the wretch¬ 
edness of his punishment, would darken the 
freshly plastered walls, and infect them early 
with the scent of an old and melancholy house. 
Why, then, — while so much of the soil around 
him was bestrewn with the virgin forest leaves, 
— why should Colonel Pyncheon prefer a site 
that had already been accurst ? 

But the Puritan soldier and magistrate was 
not a man to be turned aside from his well- 
considered scheme, either by dread of the wiz¬ 
ard’s ghost, or by flimsy sentimentalities of 
any kind, however specious. Had he been told 
of a bad air, it might have moved him some¬ 
what ; but he was ready to encounter an evil 
spirit on his own ground. Endowed with com- 
7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


mon-sense, as massive and hard as blocks of 
granite, fastened together by stern rigidity of 
purpose, as with iron clamps, he followed out 
his original design, probably without so much 
as imagining an objection to it. On the score 
of delicacy, or any scrupulousness which a finer 
sensibility might have taught him, the Colonel, 
like most of his breed and generation, was 
impenetrable. He therefore dug his cellar, 
and laid the deep foundations of his mansion, 
on the square of earth whence Matthew Maule, 
forty years before, had first swept away the 
fallen leaves. It was a curious, and, as some 
people thought, an ominous fact, that, very 
soon after the workmen began their operations, 
the spring of water, above mentioned, entirely 
lost the deliciousness of its pristine quality. 
Whether its sources were disturbed by the 
depth of the new cellar, or whatever subtler 
cause might lurk at the bottom, it is certain 
that the water of Maule’s Well, as it continued 
to be called, grew hard and brackish. Even 
such we find it now; and any old woman of 
the neighborhood will certify that it is produc¬ 
tive of intestinal mischief to those who quench 
their thirst there. 

The reader may deem it singular that the 
head carpenter of the new edifice was no other 
than the son of the very man from whose dead 
gripe the property of the soil had been wrested. 

8 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


Not improbably he was the best workman of 
his time ; or, perhaps, the Colonel thought it 
expedient, or was impelled by some better feel¬ 
ing, thus openly to cast aside all animosity 
against the race of his fallen antagonist. Nor 
was it out of keeping with the general coarse¬ 
ness and matter-of-fact character of the age, that 
the son should be willing to earn an honest 
penny, or, rather, a weighty amount of sterling 
pounds, from the purse of his father’s deadly 
enemy. At all events, Thomas Maule became 
the architect of the House of the Seven Gables, 
and performed his duty so faithfully that the 
timber framework fastened by his hands still 
holds together. 

Thus the great house was built. Familiar 
as it stands in the writer’s recollection, — for it 
has been an object of curiosity with him from 
boyhood, both as a specimen of the best and 
stateliest architecture of a long-past epoch, and 
as the scene of events more full of human inter¬ 
est, perhaps, than those of a gray feudal castle, 
— familiar as it stands, in its rusty old age, it 
is therefore only the more difficult to imagine 
the bright novelty with which it first caught the 
sunshine. The impression of its actual state, 
at this distance of a hundred and sixty years, 
darkens inevitably through the picture which 
we would fain give of its appearance on the 
morning when the Puritan magnate bade all 
9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the town to be his guests. A ceremony of 
consecration, festive as well as religious, was 
now to be performed. A prayer and discourse 
from the Rev. Mr. Higginson, and the out¬ 
pouring of a psalm from the general throat of 
the community, was to be made acceptable to 
the grosser sense by ale, cider, wine, and brandy, 
in copious effusion, and, as some authorities 
aver, by an ox, roasted whole, or at least, by the 
weight and substance of an ox, in more man¬ 
ageable joints and sirloins. The carcass of a 
deer, shot within twenty miles, had supplied 
material for the vast circumference of a pasty. 
A codfish of sixty pounds, caught in the bay, 
had been dissolved into the rich liquid of a 
chowder. The chimney of the new house, in 
short, belching forth its kitchen smoke, im¬ 
pregnated the whole air with the scent of meats, 
fowls, and fishes, spicily concocted with odorif¬ 
erous herbs, and onions in abundance. The 
mere smell of such festivity, making its way to 
everybody’s nostrils, was at once an invitation 
and an appetite. 

Maule’s Lane, or Pyncheon Street, as it were 
now more decorous to call it, was thronged, at 
the appointed hour, as with a congregation on 
its way to church. All, as they approached, 
looked upward at the imposing edifice, which 
was henceforth to assume its rank among the 
habitations of mankind. There it rose, a little 
io 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


withdrawn from the line of the street, but in 
pride, not modesty. Its whole visible exterior 
was ornamented with quaint figures, conceived 
in the grotesqueness of a Gothic fancy, and 
drawn or stamped in the glittering plaster, com¬ 
posed of lime, pebbles, and bits of glass, with 
which the woodwork of the walls was over¬ 
spread. On every side the seven gables pointed 
sharply towards the sky, and presented the 
aspect of a whole sisterhood of edifices, breath¬ 
ing through the spiracles of one great chimney. 
The many lattices, with their small, diamond¬ 
shaped panes, admitted the sunlight into hall 
and chamber, while, nevertheless, the second 
story, projecting far over the base, and itself 
retiring beneath the third, threw a shadowy and 
thoughtful gloom into the lower rooms. Carved 
globes of wood were affixed under the jutting 
stories. Little spiral rods of iron beautified 
each of the seven peaks. On the triangular 
portion of the gable, that fronted next the street, 
was a dial, put up that very morning, and on 
which the sun was still marking the passage of 
the first bright hour in a history that was not 
destined to be all so bright. All around were 
scattered shavings, chips, shingles, and broken 
halves of bricks ; these, together with the lately 
turned earth, on which the grass had not begun 
to grow, contributed to the impression of 
strangeness and novelty proper to a house that 
ii 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


had yet its place to make among men's daily 
interests. 

The principal entrance, which had almost the 
breadth of a church door, was in the angle be¬ 
tween the two front gables, and was covered by 
an open porch, with benches beneath its shelter. 
Under this arched doorway, scraping their feet 
on the unworn threshold, now trod the clergy¬ 
men, the elders, the magistrates, the deacons, 
and whatever of aristocracy there was in town 
or county. Thither, too, thronged the plebeian 
classes as freely as their betters, and in larger 
number. Just within the entrance, however, 
stood two serving-men, pointing some of the 
guests to the neighborhood of the kitchen, and 
ushering others into the statelier rooms, — hos¬ 
pitable alike to all, but still with a scrutinizing 
regard to the high or low degree of each. Vel¬ 
vet garments, sombre but rich, stiffly plaited 
ruffs and bands, embroidered gloves, venerable 
beards, the mien and countenance of authority, 
made it easy to distinguish the gentleman of 
worship, at that period, from the tradesman, 
with his plodding air, or the laborer, in his 
leathern jerkin, stealing awe-stricken into the 
house which he had perhaps helped to build. 

One inauspicious circumstance there was, 
which awakened a hardly concealed displeasure 
in the breasts of a few of the more punctilious 
visitors. The founder of this stately mansion 
12 


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THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


— a gentleman noted for the square and pon¬ 
derous courtesy of his demeanor, — ought 
surely to have stood in his own hall, and to 
have offered the first welcome to so many emi¬ 
nent personages as here presented themselves 
in honor of his solemn festival. He was as yet 
invisible ; the most favored of the guests had 
not beheld him. This sluggishness on Colonel 
Pyncheon’s part became still more unaccount¬ 
able, when the second dignitary of the province 
made his appearance, and found no more cere¬ 
monious a reception. The lieutenant-governor, 
although his visit was one of the anticipated 
glories of the day, had alighted from his horse, 
and assisted his lady from her side-saddle, and 
crossed the Colonel’s threshold, without other 
greeting than that of the principal domestic. 

This person — a gray-headed man, of quiet 
and most respectful deportment — found it 
necessary to explain that his master still re¬ 
mained in his study, or private apartment; on 
entering which, an hour before, he had expressed 
a wish on no account to be disturbed. 

<c Do not you see, fellow,” said the high 
sheriff of the county, taking the servant aside, 
“ that this is no less a man than the lieutenant- 
governor ? Summon Colonel Pyncheon at 
once ! I know that he received letters from 
England this morning; and, in the perusal and 
consideration of them, an hour may have passed 
l 3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


away without his noticing it. But he will be ill 
pleased, I judge, if you suffer him to neglect the 
courtesy due to one of our chief rulers, and who 
may be said to represent King William, in the 
absence of the governor himself. Call your 
master instantly! ” 

“ Nay, please your worship/’ answered the 
man, in much perplexity, but with a backward¬ 
ness that strikingly indicated the hard and 
severe character of Colonel Pyncheon’s domes¬ 
tic rule; “ my master’s orders were exceeding 
strict; and, as your worship knows, he permits 
of no discretion in the obedience of those who 
owe him service. Let who list open yonder 
door; I dare not, though the governor’s own 
voice should bid me do it! ” 

“ Pooh, pooh, master high sheriff!” cried 
the lieutenant-governor, who had overheard the 
foregoing discussion, and felt himself high 
enough in station to play a little with his dig¬ 
nity. “ I will take the matter into my own 
hands. It is time that the good Colonel came 
forth to greet his friends; else we shall be apt 
to suspect that he has taken a sip too much 
of his Canary wine, in his extreme deliberation 
which cask it were best to broach in honor of 
the day ! But since he is so much behindhand, 
I will give him a remembrancer myself! ” 

Accordingly, with such a tramp of his pon¬ 
derous riding-boots as might of itself have been 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


audible in the remotest of the seven gables, he 
advanced to the door, which the servant pointed 
out, and made its new panels reecho with a 
loud, free knock. Then, looking round, with 
a smile, to the spectators, he awaited a response. 
As none came, however, he knocked again, but 
with the same unsatisfactory result as at first. 
And now, being a trifle choleric in his tem¬ 
perament, the lieutenant-governor uplifted the 
heavy hilt of his sword, wherewith he so beat 
and banged upon the door, that, as some of the 
bystanders whispered, the racket might have 
disturbed the dead. Be that as it might, it 
seemed to produce no awakening effect on Colo¬ 
nel Pyncheon. When the sound subsided, the 
silence through the house was deep, dreary, and 
oppressive, notwithstanding that the tongues 
of many of the guests had already been loos¬ 
ened by a surreptitious cup or two of wine or 
spirits. 

“ Strange, forsooth ! — very strange! ” cried 
the lieutenant-governor, whose smile was 
changed to a frown. “ But seeing that our 
host sets us the good example of forgetting 
ceremony, I shall likewise throw it aside, and 
make free to intrude on his privacy ! ” 

He tried the door, which yielded to his hand, 
and was flung wide open by a sudden gust of 
wind that passed, as with a loud sigh, from the 
outermost portal through all the passages and 
15 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


apartments of the new house. It rustled the 
silken garments of the ladies, and waved the 
long curls of the gentlemen’s wigs, and shook 
the window-hangings and the curtains of the 
bedchambers; causing everywhere a singular 
stir, which yet was more like a hush. A 
shadow of awe and half-fearful anticipation — 
nobody knew wherefore, nor of what — had all 
at once fallen over the company. 

They thronged, however, to the now open 
door, pressing the lieutenant-governor, in the 
eagerness of their curiosity, into the room in 
advance of them. At the first glimpse they 
beheld nothing extraordinary: a handsomely 
furnished room, of moderate size, somewhat 
darkened by curtains; books arranged on 
shelves; a large map on the wall, and likewise 
a portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, beneath which 
sat the original Colonel himself, in an oaken 
elbow-chair, with a pen in his hand. Letters, 
parchments, and blank sheets of paper were on 
the table before him. He appeared to gaze at 
the curious crowd, in front of which stood the 
lieutenant-governor; and there was a frown on 
his dark and massive countenance, as if sternly 
resentful of the boldness that had impelled 
them into his private retirement. 

A little boy — the Colonel’s grandchild, and 
the only human being that ever dared to be 
familiar with him — now made his way among 
16 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


the guests, and ran towards the seated figure; 
then pausing halfway, he began to shriek with 
terror. The company, tremulous as the leaves 
of a tree, when all are shaking together, drew 
nearer, and perceived that there was an unnat¬ 
ural distortion in the fixedness of Colonel Pyn- 
cheon’s stare ; that there was blood on his ruff, 
and that his hoary beard was saturated with 
it. It was too late to give assistance. The 
iron-hearted Puritan, the relentless persecutor, 
the grasping and strong-willed man, was dead ! 
Dead, in his new house ! There is a tradition, 
only worth alluding to as lending a tinge of 
superstitious awe to a scene perhaps gloomy 
enough without it, that a voice spoke loudly 
among the guests, the tones of which were like 
those of old Matthew Maule, the executed 
wizard, — “ God hath given him blood to 
drink! ” 

Thus early had that one guest, — the only 
guest who is certain, at one time or another, to 
find his way into every human dwelling, — thus 
early had Death stepped across the threshold of 
the House of the Seven Gables ! 

Colonel Pyncheon’s sudden and mysterious 
end made a vast deal of noise in its day. There 
were many rumors, some of which have vaguely 
drifted down to the present time, how that 
appearances indicated violence ; that there were 
the marks of fingers on his throat, and the print 
l 7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

of a bloody hand on his plaited ruff; and that 
his peaked beard was dishevelled, as if it had 
been fiercely clutched and pulled. It was 
averred, likewise, that the lattice window, near 
the Colonel’s chair, was open; and that, only 
a few minutes before the fatal occurrence, the 
figure of a man had been seen clambering over 
the garden fence, in the rear of the house. But 
it were folly to lay any stress on stories of this 
kind, which are sure to spring up around such 
an event as that now related, and which, as in the 
present case, sometimes prolong themselves for 
ages afterwards, like the toadstools that indicate 
where the fallen and buried trunk of a tree has 
long since mouldered into the earth. For our 
own part, we allow them just as little credence 
as to that other fable of the skeleton hand 
which the lieutenant-governor was said to have 
seen at the Colonel’s throat, but which vanished 
away, as he advanced farther into the room. 
Certain it is, however, that there was a great 
consultation and dispute of doctors over the 
dead body. One, — John Swinnerton by name, 
— who appears to have been a man of emi¬ 
nence, upheld it, if we have rightly understood 
his terms of art, to be a case of apoplexy. His 
professional brethren, each for himself, adopted 
various hypotheses, more or less plausible, but 
all dressed out in a perplexing mystery of phrase, 
which, if it do not show a bewilderment of 
18 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


mind in these erudite physicians, certainly 
causes it in the unlearned peruser of their opin¬ 
ions. The coroner's jury sat upon the corpse, 
and, like sensible men, returned an unassailable 
verdict of “ Sudden Death ! ” 

It is indeed difficult to imagine that there 
could have been a serious suspicion of murder, 
or the slightest grounds for implicating any 
particular individual as the perpetrator. The 
rank, wealth, and eminent character of the de¬ 
ceased must have insured the strictest scrutiny 
into every ambiguous circumstance. As none 
such is on record, it is safe to assume that none 
existed. Tradition, — which sometimes brings 
down truth that history has let slip, but is 
oftener the wild babble of the time, such as was 
formerly spoken at the fireside and now con¬ 
geals in newspapers, — tradition is responsible 
for all contrary averments. In Colonel Pyn- 
cheon's funeral sermon, which was printed, and 
is still extant, the Rev. Mr. Higginson enumer¬ 
ates, among the many felicities of his distin¬ 
guished parishioner's earthly career, the happy 
seasonableness of his death. His duties all per¬ 
formed, — the highest prosperity attained, — 
his race and future generations fixed on a stable 
basis, and with a stately roof to shelter them 
for centuries to come, — what other upward 
step remained for this good man to take, save 
the final step from earth to the golden gate of 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


heaven ! The pious clergyman surely would 
not have uttered words like these had he in the 
least suspected that the Colonel had been thrust 
into the other world with the clutch of violence 
upon his throat. 

The family of Colonel Pyncheon, at the epoch 
of his death, seemed destined to as fortunate 
a permanence as can anywise consist with the 
inherent instability of human affairs. It might 
fairly be anticipated that the progress of time 
would rather increase and ripen their prosper¬ 
ity, than wear away and destroy it. For, not 
only had his son and heir come into imme¬ 
diate enjoyment of a rich estate, but there was 
a claim through an Indian deed, confirmed by 
a subsequent grant of the General Court, to a 
vast and as yet unexplored and unmeasured 
tract of Eastern lands. These possessions — 
for as such they might almost certainly be reck¬ 
oned — comprised the greater part of what is 
now known as Waldo County, in the State of 
Maine, and were more extensive than many a 
dukedom, or even a reigning prince's territory, 
on European soil. When the pathless forest 
that still covered this wild principality should 
give place — as it inevitably must, though per¬ 
haps not till ages hence — to the golden fer¬ 
tility of human culture, it would be the source 
of incalculable wealth to the Pyncheon blood. 
Had the Colonel survived only a few weeks 
20 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

longer, it is probable that his great political 
influence, and powerful connections at home 
and abroad, would have consummated all that 
was necessary to render the claim available. 
But, in spite of good Mr. Higginson's con¬ 
gratulatory eloquence, this appeared to be the 
one thing which Colonel Pyncheon, provident 
and sagacious as he was, had allowed to go at 
loose ends. So far as the prospective territory 
was concerned, he unquestionably died too soon. 
His son lacked not merely the father's eminent 
position, but the talent and force of character 
to achieve it: he could, therefore, effect no¬ 
thing by dint of political interest; and the bare 
justice or legality of the claim was not so appar¬ 
ent, after the Colonel's decease, as it had been 
pronounced in his lifetime. Some connecting 
link had slipped out of the evidence, and could 
not anywhere be found. 

Efforts, it is true, were made by the Pyn- 
cheons, not only then, but at various periods 
for nearly a hundred years afterwards, to obtain 
what they stubbornly persisted in deeming their 
right. But, in course of time, the territory was 
partly regranted to more favored individuals, 
and partly cleared and occupied by actual set¬ 
tlers. These last, if they ever heard of the Pyn¬ 
cheon title, would have laughed at the idea of 
any man's asserting a right — on the strength 
of mouldy parchments, signed with the faded 
21 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

autographs of governors and legislators long 
dead and forgotten — to the lands which they 
or their fathers had wrested from the wild hand 
of nature by their own sturdy toil. This im¬ 
palpable claim, therefore, resulted in nothing 
more solid than to cherish, from generation 
to generation, an absurd delusion of family 
importance, which all along characterized the 
Pyncheons. It caused the poorest member 
of the race to feel as if he inherited a kind of 
nobility, and might yet come into the possession 
of princely wealth to support it. In the better 
specimens of the breed, this peculiarity threw 
an ideal grace over the hard material of human 
life, without stealing away any truly valuable 
quality. In the baser sort, its effect was to in¬ 
crease the liability to sluggishness and depend¬ 
ence, and induce the victim of a shadowy hope 
to remit all self-effort, while awaiting the reali¬ 
zation of his dreams. Years and years after 
their claim had passed out of the public mem¬ 
ory, the Pyncheons were accustomed to con¬ 
sult the Colonel’s ancient map, which had been 
projected while Waldo County was still an 
unbroken wilderness. Where the old land 
surveyor had put down woods, lakes, and 
rivers, they marked out the cleared spaces, 
and dotted the villages and towns, and calcu¬ 
lated the progressively increasing value of the 
territory, as if there were yet a prospect of 
22 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


its ultimately forming a princedom for them¬ 
selves. 

In almost every generation, nevertheless, 
there happened to be some one descendant of 
the family gifted with a portion of the hard, 
keen sense, and practical energy, that had so 
remarkably distinguished the original founder. 
His character, indeed, might be traced all the 
way down, as distinctly as if the Colonel him¬ 
self, a little diluted, had been gifted with a 
sort of intermittent immortality on earth. At 
two or three epochs, when the fortunes of the 
family were low, this representative of heredi¬ 
tary qualities had made his appearance, and 
caused the traditionary gossips of the town to 
whisper among themselves, “ Here is the old 
Pyncheon come again ! Now the Seven Gables 
will be new-shingled ! ” From father to son, 
they clung to the ancestral house with singular 
tenacity of home attachment. For various rea¬ 
sons, however, and from impressions often too 
vaguely founded to be put on paper, the writer 
cherishes the belief that many, if not most, of 
the successive proprietors of this estate were 
troubled with doubts as to their moral right to 
hold it. Of their legal tenure there could be 
no question; but old Matthew Maule, it is to 
be feared, trode downward from his own age 
to a far later one, planting a heavy footstep, all 
the way, on the conscience of a Pyncheon. If 

23 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

so, we are left to dispose of the awful query, 
whether each inheritor of the property — con¬ 
scious of wrong, and failing to rectify it — did 
not commit anew the great guilt of his ances¬ 
tor, and incur all its original responsibilities. 
And supposing such to be the case, would it 
not be a far truer mode of expression to say 
of the Pyncheon family, that they inherited a 
great misfortune, than the reverse ? 

We have already hinted that it is not our 
purpose to trace down the history of the Pyn¬ 
cheon family, in its unbroken connection with 
the House of the Seven Gables ; nor to show, 
as in a magic picture, how the rustiness and 
infirmity of age gathered over the venerable 
house itself. As regards its interior life, a 
large, dim looking-glass used to hang in one 
of the rooms, and was fabled to contain within 
its depths all the shapes that had ever been 
reflected there, — the old Colonel himself, and 
his many descendants, some in the garb of an¬ 
tique babyhood, and others in the bloom of 
feminine beauty or manly prime, or saddened 
with the wrinkles of frosty age. Had we the 
secret of that mirror, we would gladly sit down 
before it, and transfer its revelations to our 
page. But there was a story, for which it is 
difficult to conceive any foundation, that the 
posterity of Matthew Maule had some con¬ 
nection with the mystery of the looking-glass, 
24 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

and that, by what appears to have been a sort 
of mesmeric process, they could make its inner 
region all alive with the departed Pyncheons; 
not as they had shown themselves to the world, 
nor in their better and happier hours, but as 
doing over again some deed of sin, or in the 
crisis of life's bitterest sorrow. The popular 
imagination, indeed, long kept itself busy with 
the affair of the old Puritan Pyncheon and 
the wizard Maule; the curse which the latter 
flung from his scaffold was remembered, with 
the very important addition, that it had become 
a part of the Pyncheon inheritance. If one of 
the family did but gurgle in his throat, a by¬ 
stander would be likely enough to whisper, be¬ 
tween jest and earnest, “ He has Maule's blood 
to drink ! ” The sudden death of a Pyncheon, 
about a hundred years ago, with circumstances 
very similar to what have been related of the 
Colonel's exit, was held as giving additional 
probability to the received opinion on this 
topic. It was considered, moreover, an ugly 
and ominous circumstance, that Colonel Pyn- 
cheon's picture — in obedience, it was said, to 
a provision of his will — remained affixed to 
the wall of the room in which he died. Those 
stern, immitigable features seemed to symbol¬ 
ize an evil influence, and so darkly to mingle 
the shadow of their presence with the sunshine 
of the passing hour, that no good thoughts or 
25 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


purposes could ever spring up and blossom 
there. To the thoughtful mind there will be 
no tinge of superstition in what we figuratively 
express, by affirming that the ghost of a dead 
progenitor — perhaps as a portion of his own 
punishment — is often doomed to become the 
Evil Genius of his family. 

The Pyncheons, in brief, lived along, for the 
better part of two centuries, with perhaps less 
of outward vicissitude than has attended most 
other New England families during the same 
period of time. Possessing very distinctive 
traits of their own, they nevertheless took the 
general characteristics of the little community 
in which they dwelt; a town noted for its fru¬ 
gal, discreet, well-ordered, and home-loving 
inhabitants, as well as for the somewhat con¬ 
fined scope of its sympathies; but in which, be 
it said, there are older individuals, and, now 
and then, stranger occurrences, than one meets 
with almost anywhere else. During the Revo¬ 
lution, the Pyncheon of that epoch, adopting 
the royal side, became a refugee; but repented, 
and made his reappearance, just at the point 
of time to preserve the House of the Seven 
Gables from confiscation. For the last seventy 
years the most noted event in the Pyncheon 
annals had been likewise the heaviest calamity 
that ever befell the race; no less than the vio¬ 
lent death — for so it was adjudged — of one 
26 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


member of the family by the criminal act of an¬ 
other. Certain circumstances attending this fatal 
occurrence had brought the deed irresistibly 
home to a nephew of the deceased Pyncheon. 
The young man was tried and convicted of the 
crime; but either the circumstantial nature of 
the evidence, and possibly some lurking doubts 
in the breast of the executive, or, lastly, — an 
argument of greater weight in a republic than it 
could have been under a monarchy, — the high 
respectability and political influence of the crim¬ 
inal’s connections, had availed to mitigate his 
doom from death to perpetual imprisonment. 
This sad affair had chanced about thirty years 
before the action of our story commences. Lat¬ 
terly, there were rumors (which few believed, 
and only one or two felt greatly interested in) 
that this long-buried man was likely, for some 
reason or other, to be summoned forth from 
his living tomb. 

It is essential to say a few words respecting 
the victim of this now almost forgotten murder. 
He was an old bachelor, and possessed of great 
wealth, in addition to the house and real estate 
which constituted what remained of the ancient 
Pyncheon property. Being of an eccentric and 
melancholy turn of mind, and greatly given to 
rummaging old records and hearkening to old 
traditions, he had brought himself, it is averred, 
to the conclusion that Matthew Maule, the wiz- 
27 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

ard, had been foully wronged out of his home¬ 
stead, if not out of his life. Such being the 
case, and he, the old bachelor, in possession of 
the ill-gotten spoil, — with the black stain of 
blood sunken deep into it, and still to be scented 
by conscientious nostrils, — the question oc¬ 
curred, whether it were not imperative upon 
him, even at this late hour, to make restitution 
to Maule’s posterity. To a man living so 
much in the past, and so little in the present, 
as the secluded and antiquarian old bachelor, a 
century and a half seemed not so vast a period 
as to obviate the propriety of substituting right 
for wrong. It was the belief of those who knew 
him best, that he would positively have taken 
the very singular step of giving up the House 
of the Seven Gables to the representative of 
Matthew Maule, but for the unspeakable tu¬ 
mult which a suspicion of the old gentleman’s 
project awakened among his Pyncheon relatives. 
Their exertions had the effect of suspending 
his purpose; but it was feared that he would 
perform, after death, by the operation of his 
last will, what he had so hardly been prevented 
from doing in his proper lifetime. But there 
is no one thing which men so rarely do, what¬ 
ever the provocation or inducement, as to be¬ 
queath patrimonial property away from their 
own blood. They may love other individuals 
far better than their relatives, — they may even 
28 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


cherish dislike, or positive hatred, to the latter; 
but yet, in view of death, the strong prejudice 
of propinquity revives, and impels the testa¬ 
tor to send down his estate in the line marked 
out by custom so immemorial that it looks 
like nature. In all the Pyncheons, this feeling 
had the energy of disease. It was too powerful 
for the conscientious scruples of the old bach¬ 
elor ; at whose death, accordingly, the mansion- 
house, together with most of his other riches, 
passed into the possession of his next legal 
representative. 

This was a nephew, the cousin of the mis¬ 
erable young man who had been convicted of 
the uncle's murder. The new heir, up to the 
period of his accession, was reckoned rather a 
dissipated youth, but had at once reformed, and 
made himself an exceedingly respectable mem¬ 
ber of society. In fact, he showed more of the 
Pyncheon quality, and had won higher emi¬ 
nence in the world, than any of his race since 
the time of the original Puritan. Applying 
himself in earlier manhood to the study of the 
law, and having a natural tendency towards 
office, he had attained, many years ago, to a 
judicial situation in some inferior court, which 
gave him for life the very desirable and impos¬ 
ing title of judge. Later, he had engaged in 
politics, and served a part of two terms in Con¬ 
gress, besides making a considerable figure in 
29 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


both branches of the State legislature. Judge 
Pyncheon was unquestionably an honor to his 
race. He had built himself a country-seat 
within a few miles of his native town, and 
there spent such portions of his time as could 
be spared from public service in the display 
of every grace and virtue — as a newspaper 
phrased it, on the eve of an election— befitting 
the Christian, the good citizen, the horticultur¬ 
ist, and the gentleman. 

There were few of the Pyncheons left to sun 
themselves in the glow of the Judge’s prosper¬ 
ity. In respect to natural increase, the breed 
had not thriven ; it appeared rather to be dying 
out. The only members of the family known 
to be extant were, first, the Judge himself, and 
a single surviving son, who was now travelling 
in Europe; next, the thirty years’ prisoner, 
already alluded to, and a sister of the latter, 
who occupied, in an extremely retired manner, 
the House of the Seven Gables, in which she 
had a life-estate by the will of the old bachelor. 
She was understood to be wretchedly poor, 
and seemed to make it her choice to remain so ; 
inasmuch as her affluent cousin, the Judge, had 
repeatedly offered her all the comforts of life, 
either in the old mansion or his own modern 
residence. The last and youngest Pyncheon was 
a little country girl of seventeen, the daughter 
of another of the Judge’s cousins, who had mar- 
30 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


ried a young woman of no family or property, 
and died early and in poor circumstances. His 
widow had recently taken another husband. 

As for Matthew Maule’s posterity, it was 
supposed now to be extinct. For a very long 
period after the witchcraft delusion, however, 
the Maules had continued to inhabit the town 
where their progenitor had suffered so unjust 
a death. To all appearance, they were a quiet, 
honest, well-meaning race of people, cherishing 
no malice against individuals or the public for 
the wrong which had been done them ; or if, 
at their own fireside, they transmitted from 
father to child any hostile recollection of the 
wizard’s fate and their lost patrimony, it was 
never acted upon, nor openly expressed. Nor 
would it have been singular had they ceased to 
remember that the House of the Seven Gables 
was resting its heavy framework on a foundation 
that was rightfully their own. There is some¬ 
thing so massive, stable, and almost irresistibly 
imposing in the exterior presentment of estab¬ 
lished rank and great possessions, that their very 
existence seems to give them a right to exist; 
at least, so excellent a counterfeit of right, that 
few poor and humble men have moral force 
enough to question it, even in their secret minds. 
Such is the case now, after so many ancient 
prejudices have been overthrown ; and it was 
far more so in ante-Revolutionary days, when 
3 1 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the aristocracy could venture to be proud, and 
the low were content to be abased. Thus the 
Maules, at all events, kept their resentments 
within their own breasts. They were generally 
poverty-stricken ; always plebeian and obscure ; 
working with unsuccessful diligence at handi¬ 
crafts ; laboring on the wharves, or following 
the sea, as sailors before the mast; living here 
and there about the town, in hired tenements, 
and coming finally to the almshouse as the natu¬ 
ral home of their old age. At last, after creep¬ 
ing, as it were, for such a length of time along 
the utmost verge of the opaque puddle of ob¬ 
scurity, they had taken that downright plunge 
which, sooner or later, is the destiny of all fami¬ 
lies, whether princely or plebeian. For thirty 
years past, neither town-record, nor gravestone, 
nor the directory, nor the knowledge or memory 
of man, bore any trace of Matthew Maule’s 
descendants. His blood might possibly exist 
elsewhere; here, where its lowly current could 
be traced so far back, it had ceased to keep an 
onward course. 

So long as any of the race were to be found, 
they had been marked out from other men — 
not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with 
an effect that was felt rather than spoken of— 
by an hereditary character of reserve. Their 
companions, or those who endeavored to be¬ 
come such, grew conscious of a circle round 
32 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

about the Maules, within the sanctity or the 
spell of which, in spite of an exterior of sufficient 
frankness and good-fellowship, it was impossi¬ 
ble for any man to step. It was this indefinable 
peculiarity, perhaps, that, by insulating them 
from human aid, kept them always so unfortu¬ 
nate in life. It certainly operated to prolong in 
their case, and to confirm to them as their only 
inheritance, those feelings of repugnance and 
superstitious terror with which the people of the 
town, even after awakening from their frenzy, 
continued to regard the memory of the reputed 
witches. The mantle, or rather the ragged cloak, 
of old Matthew Maule had fallen upon his 
children. They were half believed to inherit 
mysterious attributes ; the family eye was said 
to possess strange power. Among other good- 
for-nothing properties and privileges, one was 
especially assigned them, — that of exercising 
an influence over people’s dreams. The Pyn- 
cheons, if all stories were true, haughtily as they 
bore themselves in the noonday streets of their 
native town, were no better than bond-servants 
to these plebeian Maules, on entering the topsy¬ 
turvy commonwealth of sleep. Modern psy¬ 
chology, it may be, will endeavor to reduce these 
alleged necromancies within a system, instead 
of rejecting them as altogether fabulous. 

A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of 
the seven-gabled mansion in its more recent 
33 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


aspect, will bring this preliminary chapter to a 
close. The street in which it upreared its ven¬ 
erable peaks has long ceased to be a fashiona¬ 
ble quarter of the town ; so that, though the old 
edifice was surrounded by habitations of modern 
date, they were mostly small, built entirely of 
wood, and typical of the most plodding uni¬ 
formity of common life. Doubtless, however, 
the whole story of human existence may be 
latent in each of them, but with no picturesque¬ 
ness, externally, that can attract the imagination 
or sympathy to seek it there. But as for the 
old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, 
and its boards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, 
and even the huge, clustered chimney in the 
midst, seemed to constitute only the least and 
meanest part of its reality. So much of man¬ 
kind’s varied experience had passed there,— 
so much had been suffered, and something, too, 
enjoyed, — that the very timbers were oozy, as 
with the moisture of a heart. It was itself like 
a great human heart, with a life of its own, and 
full of rich and sombre reminiscences. 

The deep projection of the second story gave 
the house such a meditative look, that you 
could not pass it without the idea that it had 
secrets to keep, and an eventful history to 
moralize upon. In front, just on the edge of 
the unpaved sidewalk, grew the Pyncheon Elm, 
which, in reference to such trees as one usually 
34 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 

meets with, might well be termed gigantic. It 
had been planted by a great-grandson of the 
first Pyncheon, and, though now fourscore 
years of age, or perhaps nearer a hundred, was 
still in its strong and broad maturity, throwing 
its shadow from side to side of the street, over¬ 
topping the seven gables, and sweeping the 
whole black roof with its pendent foliage. It 
gave beauty to the old edifice, and seemed to 
make it a part of nature. The street having 
been widened about forty years ago, the front 
gable was now precisely on a line with it. On 
either side extended a ruinous wooden fence 
of open lattice-work, through which could be 
seen a grassy yard, and, especially in the angles 
of the building, an enormous fertility of bur¬ 
docks, with leaves, it is hardly an exaggeration 
to say, two or three feet long. Behind the 
house there appeared to be a garden, which 
undoubtedly had once been extensive, but was 
now infringed upon by other enclosures, or 
shut in by habitations and outbuildings that 
stood on another street. It would be an omis¬ 
sion, trifling, indeed, but unpardonable, were 
we to forget the green moss that had long 
since gathered over the projections of the win¬ 
dows, and on the slopes of the roof; nor must 
we fail to direct the reader’s eye to a crop, not 
of weeds, but flower-shrubs, which were grow¬ 
ing aloft in the air, not a great way from the 
35 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

chimney, in the nook between two of the ga¬ 
bles. They were called Alice's Posies. The 
tradition was, that a certain Alice Pyncheon 
had flung up the seeds, in sport, and that the 
dust of the street and the decay of the roof 
gradually formed a kind of soil for them, out 
of which they grew, when Alice had long been 
in her grave. However the flowers might 
have come there, it was both sad and sweet to 
observe how Nature adopted to herself this des¬ 
olate, decaying, gusty, rusty old house of the 
Pyncheon family; and how the ever-returning 
summer did her best to gladden it with tender 
beauty, and grew melancholy in the effort. 

There is one other feature, very essential to , 
be noticed, but which, we greatly fear, may 
damage any picturesque and romantic impres¬ 
sion which we have been willing to throw over 
our sketch of this respectable edifice. In the 
front gable, under the impending brow of the 
second story, and contiguous to the street, was 
a shop-door, divided horizontally in the midst, 
and with a window for its upper segment, such 
as is often seen in dwellings of a somewhat 
ancient date. This same shop-door had been 
a subject of no slight mortification to the pre¬ 
sent occupant of the august Pyncheon House, 
as well as to some of her predecessors. The 
matter is disagreeably delicate to handle ; but, 
since the reader must needs be let into the 
3b 


THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY 


secret, he will please to understand, that, about 
a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found 
himself involved in serious financial difficulties. 
The fellow (gentleman, as he styled himself) 
can hardly have been other than a spurious in¬ 
terloper ; for, instead of seeking office from 
the king or the royal governor, or urging his 
hereditary claim to Eastern lands, he bethought 
himself of no better avenue to wealth than by 
cutting a shop-door through the side of his 
ancestral residence. It was the custom of the 
time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods 
and transact business in their own dwellings. 
But there was something pitifully small in this 
old Pyncheon’s mode of setting about his com¬ 
mercial operations ; it was whispered, that, with 
his own hands, all berufffed as they were, he 
used to give change for a shilling, and would 
turn a half-penny twice over, to make sure that 
it was a good one. Beyond all question, he 
had the blood of a petty huckster in his veins, 
through whatever channel it may have found 
its way there. 

Immediately on his death, the shop-door had 
been locked, bolted, and barred, and, down to 
the period of our story, had probably never 
once been opened. The old counter, shelves, 
and other fixtures of the little shop remained 
just as he had left them. It used to be af¬ 
firmed, that the dead shop-keeper, in a white 
37 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

wig, a faded velvet coat, an apron at his waist, 
and his ruffles carefully turned back from his 
wrists, might be seen through the chinks of 
the shutters, any night of the year, ransacking 
his till, or poring over the dingy pages of his 
day-book. From the look of unutterable woe 
upon his face, it appeared to be his doom to 
spend eternity in a vain effort to make his 
accounts balance. 

And now — in a very humble way, as will 
be seen — we proceed to open our narrative. 

38 





II 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 

I T still lacked half an hour of sunrise, when 
Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon — we will not 
say awoke, it being doubtful whether the 
poor lady had so much as closed her eyes dur¬ 
ing the brief night of midsummer — but, at 
all events, arose from her solitary pillow, and 
began what it would be mockery to term the 
adornment of her person. Far from us be the 
indecorum of assisting, even in imagination, at 
a maiden lady’s toilet! Our story must there¬ 
fore await Miss Hepzibah at the threshold of 
her chamber; only presuming, meanwhile, to 
note some of the heavy sighs that labored from 
her bosom, with little restraint as to their lugu¬ 
brious depth and volume of sound, inasmuch 
as they could be audible to nobody save a dis¬ 
embodied listener like ourself. The Old Maid 
was alone in the old house. Alone, except for 
a certain respectable and orderly young man, 
an artist in the daguerreotype line, who, for 
about three months back, had been a lodger in 
a remote gable, — quite a house by itself, in¬ 
deed,— with locks, bolts, and oaken bars on 
39 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


all the intervening doors. Inaudible, conse¬ 
quently, were poor Miss Hepzibah’s gusty 
sighs. Inaudible the creaking joints of her 
stiffened knees, as she knelt down by the bed¬ 
side. And inaudible, too, by mortal ear, but 
heard with all-comprehending love and pity in 
the farthest heaven, that almost agony of prayer 
— now whispered, now a groan, now a strug¬ 
gling silence — wherewith she besought the 
Divine assistance through the day! Evidently, 
this is to be a day of more than ordinary trial 
to Miss Hepzibah, who, for above a quarter 
of a century gone by, has dwelt in strict seclu¬ 
sion, taking no part in the business of life, and 
just as little in its intercourse and pleasures. 
Not with such fervor prays the torpid recluse, 
looking forward to the cold, sunless, stagnant 
calm of a day that is to be like innumerable 
yesterdays. 

The maiden lady’s devotions are concluded. 
Will she now issue forth over the threshold of 
our story ? Not yet, by many moments. First, 
every drawer in the tall, old-fashioned bureau 
is to be opened, with difficulty, and with a suc¬ 
cession of spasmodic jerks ; then, all must close 
again, with the same fidgety reluctance. There 
is a rustling of stiff silks ; a tread of backward 
and forward footsteps to and fro across the 
chamber. We suspect Miss Hepzibah, more¬ 
over, of taking a step upward into a chair, in 
40 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


order to give heedful regard to her appearance 
on all sides, and at full length, in the oval, 
dingy-framed toilet-glass, that hangs above her 
table. Truly ! well, indeed ! who would have 
thought it! Is all this precious time to be lav¬ 
ished on the matutinal repair and beautifying 
of an elderly person, who never goes abroad, 
whom nobody ever visits, and from whom, 
when she shall have done her utmost, it were 
the best charity to turn one’s eyes another way ? 

Now she is almost ready. Let us pardon 
her one other pause; for it is given to the sole 
sentiment, or, we might better say, — height¬ 
ened and rendered intense, as it has been, by 
sorrow and seclusion, — to the strong passion 
of her life. We heard the turning of a key in 
a small lock; she has opened a secret drawer 
of an escritoire, and is probably looking at a 
certain miniature, done in Malbone’s most per¬ 
fect style, and representing a face worthy of no 
less delicate a pencil. It was once our good 
fortune to see this picture. It is a likeness of 
a young man, in a silken dressing-gown of an 
old fashion, the soft richness of which is well 
adapted to the countenance of reverie, with its 
full, tender lips, and beautiful eyes, that seem 
to indicate not so much capacity of thought, as 
gentle and voluptuous emotion. Of the pos¬ 
sessor of such features we shall have a right to 
ask nothing, except that he would take the 
4i 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


rude world easily, and make himself happy in it. 
Can it have been an early lover of Miss Hep- 
zibah ? No; she never had a lover—poor thing, 
how could she ? — nor ever knew, by her own 
experience, what love technically means. And 
yet, her undying faith and trust, her fresh re¬ 
membrance, and continual devotedness towards 
the original of that miniature, have been the 
only substance for her heart to feed upon. 

She seems to have put aside the miniature, 
and is standing again before the toilet-glass. 
There are tears to be wiped off. A few more 
footsteps to and fro ; and here, at last, — with 
another pitiful sigh, like a gust of chill, damp 
wind out of a long-closed vault, the door of 
which has accidentally been set ajar, — here 
comes Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon ! Forth she 
steps into the dusky, time-darkened passage; a 
tall figure, clad in black silk, with a long and 
shrunken waist, feeling her way towards the 
stairs like a near-sighted person, as in truth 
she is. 

The sun, meanwhile, if not already above 
the horizon, was ascending nearer and nearer 
to its verge. A few clouds, floating high up¬ 
ward, caught some of the earliest light, and 
threw down its golden gleam on the windows 
of all the houses in the street, not forgetting 
the House of the Seven Gables, which — many 
such sunrises as it had witnessed — looked 
42 




Can it have been an early lover ? 













' 

































































THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 

cheerfully at the present one. The reflected 
radiance served to show, pretty distinctly, the 
aspect and arrangement of the room which Hep- 
zibah entered, after descending the stairs. It 
was a low-studded room, with a beam across 
the ceiling, panelled with dark wood, and hav¬ 
ing a large chimney-piece, set round with pic¬ 
tured tiles, but now closed by an iron fire-board, 
through which ran the funnel of a modern stove. 
There was a carpet on the floor, originally of 
rich texture, but so worn and faded in these 
latter years that its once brilliant figure had 
quite vanished into one indistinguishable hue. 
In the way of furniture, there were two tables: 
one, constructed with perplexing intricacy and 
exhibiting as many feet as a centipede ; the 
other, most delicately wrought, with four long 
and slender legs, so apparently frail that it was 
almost incredible what a length of time the 
ancient tea-table had stood upon them. Half 
a dozen chairs stood about the room, straight 
and stiff, and so ingeniously contrived for the 
discomfort of the human person that they were 
irksome even to sight, and conveyed the ugliest 
possible idea of the state of society to which 
they could have been adapted. One exception 
there was, however, in a very antique elbow- 
chair, with a high back, carved elaborately in 
oak, and a roomy depth within its arms, that 
made up, by its spacious comprehensiveness, 
43 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


for the lack of any of those artistic curves which 
abound in a modern chair. 

As for ornamental articles of furniture, we 
recollect but two, if such they may be called. 
One was a map of the Pyncheon territory at 
the eastward, not engraved, but the handiwork 
of some skilful old draughtsman, and gro¬ 
tesquely illuminated with pictures of Indians 
and wild beasts, among which was seen a lion ; 
the natural history of the region being as little 
known as its geography, which was put down 
most fantastically awry. The other adornment 
was the portrait of old Colonel Pyncheon, at 
two thirds length, representing the stern fea¬ 
tures of a Puritanic-looking personage, in a 
skull-cap, with a laced band and a grizzly beard ; 
holding a Bible with one hand, and in the other 
uplifting an iron sword-hilt. The latter object, 
being more successfully depicted by the artist, 
stood out in far greater prominence than the 
sacred volume. Face to face with this picture, 
on entering the apartment, Miss Hepzibah 
Pyncheon came to a pause ; regarding it with a 
singular scowl, a strange contortion of the brow, 
which, by people who did not know her, would 
probably have been interpreted as an expression 
of bitter anger and ill-will. But it was no such 
thing. She, in fact, felt a reverence for the 
pictured visage, of which only a far-descended 
and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible; 

44 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


and this forbidding scowl was the innocent 
result of her near-sightedness, and an effort so 
to concentrate her powers of vision as to sub¬ 
stitute a firm outline of the object instead of a 
vague one. 

We must linger a moment on this unfor¬ 
tunate expression of poor Hepzibah’s brow. 
Her scowl,— as the world, or such part of it 
as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her 
at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it, 
— her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very 
ill office, in establishing her character as an ill- 
tempered old maid ; nor does it appear improb¬ 
able that, by often gazing at herself in a dim 
looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her 
own frown within its ghostly sphere, she had 
been led to interpret the expression almost as 
unjustly as the world did. “ How miserably 
cross I look ! ” she must often have whispered 
to herself; and ultimately have fancied herself 
so, by a sense of inevitable doom. But her 
heart never frowned. It was naturally tender, 
sensitive, and full of little tremors and palpita¬ 
tions ; all of which weaknesses it retained, while 
her visage was growing so perversely stern, 
and even fierce. Nor had Hepzibah ever any 
hardihood, except what came from the very 
warmest nook in her affections. 

All this time, however, we are loitering faint¬ 
heartedly on the threshold of our story. In 
45 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


very truth, we have an invincible reluctance to 
disclose what Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon was 
about to do. 

It has already been observed, that, in the 
basement story of the gable fronting on the 
street, an unworthy ancestor, nearly a century 
ago, had fitted up a shop. Ever since the old 
gentleman retired from trade, and fell asleep 
under his coffin-lid, not only the shop-door, 
but the inner arrangements, had been suffered 
to remain unchanged; while the dust of ages 
gathered inch-deep over the shelves and coun¬ 
ter, and partly filled an old pair of scales, as if 
it were of value enough to be weighed. It 
treasured itself up, too, in the half-open till, 
where there still lingered a base sixpence, worth 
neither more nor less than the hereditary pride 
which had here been put to shame. Such had 
been the state and condition of the little shop 
in old Hepzibah’s childhood, when she and her 
brother used to play at hide-and-seek in its 
forsaken precincts. So it had remained, until 
within a few days past. 

But now, though the shop-window was still 
closely curtained from the public gaze, a re¬ 
markable change had taken place in its interior. 
The rich and heavy festoons of cobweb, which 
it had cost a long ancestral succession of spi¬ 
ders their life’s labor to spin and weave, had 
been carefully brushed away from the ceiling. 

46 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 

The counter, shelves, and floor had all been 
scoured, and the latter was overstrewn with 
fresh blue sand. The brown scales, too, had 
evidently undergone rigid discipline, in an un¬ 
availing effort to rub off the rust, which, alas ! 
had eaten through and through their substance. 
Neither was the little old shop any longer empty 
of merchantable goods. A curious eye, privi¬ 
leged to take an account of stock and investi¬ 
gate behind the counter, would have discovered 
a barrel, — yea, two or three barrels and half 
ditto, — one containing flour, another apples, 
and a third, perhaps, Indian meal. There was 
likewise a square box of pine-wood, full of soap 
in bars ; also, another of the same size, in which 
were tallow candles, ten to the pound. A small 
stock of brown sugar, some white beans and 
split peas, and a few other commodities of low 
price, and such as are constantly in demand, 
made up the bulkier portion of the merchan¬ 
dise. It might have been taken for a ghostly 
or phantasmagoric reflection of the old shop¬ 
keeper Pyncheon’s shabbily provided shelves, 
save that some of the articles were of a descrip¬ 
tion and outward form which could hardly have 
been known in his day. For instance, there was 
a glass pickle-jar, filled with fragments of Gi¬ 
braltar rock; not, indeed, splinters of the ver¬ 
itable stone foundation of the famous fortress, 
but bits of delectable candy, neatly done up in 
47 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

white paper. Jim Crow, moreover, was seen 
executing his world-renowned dance, in ginger¬ 
bread. A party of leaden dragoons were gal¬ 
loping along one of the shelves, in equipments 
and uniform of modern cut; and there were 
some sugar figures, with no strong resemblance 
to the humanity of any epoch, but less unsat¬ 
isfactorily representing our own fashions than 
those of a hundred years ago. Another phe¬ 
nomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a 
package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, 
would have been thought actually to borrow 
their instantaneous flame from the nether fires 
of Tophet. 

In short, to bring the matter at once to a 
point, it was incontrovertibly evident that some¬ 
body had taken the shop and fixtures of the 
long-retired and forgotten Mr. Pyncheon, and 
was about to renew the enterprise of that de¬ 
parted worthy, with a different set of customers. 
Who could this bold adventurer be ? And, of 
all places in the world, why had he chosen the 
House of the Seven Gables as the scene of his 
commercial speculations ? 

We return to the elderly maiden. She at 
length withdrew her eyes from the dark counte¬ 
nance of the Colonel's portrait, heaved a sigh, 
— indeed, her breast was a very cave of iEolus 
that morning, — and stept across the room on 
tiptoe, as is the customary gait of elderly wo- 
48 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


men. Passing through an intervening passage, 
she opened a door that communicated with the 
shop, just now so elaborately described. Ow¬ 
ing to the projection of the upper story— and 
still more to the thick shadow of the Pyncheon 
Elm, which stood almost directly in front of 
the gable — the twilight, here, was still as much 
akin to night as morning. Another heavy sigh 
from Miss Hepzibah ! After a moment’s pause 
on the threshold, peering towards the window 
with her near-sighted scowl, as if frowning down 
some bitter enemy, she suddenly projected her¬ 
self into the shop. The haste, and, as it were, 
the galvanic impulse of the movement, were 
really quite startling. 

Nervously — in a sort of frenzy, we might 
almost say — she began to busy herself in ar¬ 
ranging some children’s playthings, and other 
little wares, on the shelves and at the shop- 
window. In the aspect of this dark-arrayed, 
pale-faced, ladylike old figure there was a deeply 
tragic character that contrasted irreconcilably 
with the ludicrous pettiness of her employment. 
It seemed a queer anomaly, that so gaunt and 
dismal a personage should take a toy in hand; 
a miracle, that the toy did not vanish in her 
grasp ; a miserably absurd idea, that she should 
go on perplexing her stiff and sombre intellect 
with the question how to tempt little boys into 
her premises ! Yet such is undoubtedly her 
49 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

object. Now she places a gingerbread elephant 
against the window, but with so tremulous a 
touch that it tumbles upon the floor, with the 
dismemberment of three legs and its trunk; it 
has ceased to be an elephant, and has become a 
few bits of musty gingerbread. There, again, 
she has upset a tumbler of marbles, all of which 
roll different ways, and each individual marble, 
devil-directed, into the most difficult obscurity 
that it can find. Heaven help our poor old 
Hepzibah, and forgive us for taking a ludicrous 
view of her position ! As her rigid and rusty 
frame goes down upon its hands and knees, in 
quest of the absconding marbles, we positively 
feel so much the more inclined to shed tears 
of sympathy, from the very fact that we must 
needs turn aside and laugh at her. For here, 
— and if we fail to impress it suitably upon 
the reader, it is our own fault, not that of the 
theme, — here is one of the truest points of 
melancholy interest that occur in ordinary life. 
It was the final throe of what called itself old 
gentility. A lady, — who had fed herself from 
childhood with the shadowy food of aristocratic 
reminiscences, and whose religion it was that 
a lady’s hand soils itself irremediably by doing 
aught for bread, — this born lady, after sixty 
years of narrowing means, is fain to step down 
from her pedestal of imaginary rank. Pov¬ 
erty, treading closely at her heels for a lifetime, 
50 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


has come up with her at last. She must earn 
her own food, or starve ! And we have stolen 
upon Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, too irrever¬ 
ently, at the instant of time when the patrician 
lady is to be transformed into the plebeian 
woman. 

In this republican country, amid the fluctuat¬ 
ing waves of our social life, somebody is always 
at the drowning-point. The tragedy is en¬ 
acted with as continual a repetition as that of a 
popular drama on a holiday; and, nevertheless, 
is felt as deeply, perhaps, as when an hereditary 
noble sinks below his order. More deeply ; 
since, with us, rank is the grosser substance of 
wealth and a splendid establishment, and has 
no spiritual existence after the death of these, 
but dies hopelessly along with them. And, 
therefore, since we have been unfortunate 
enough to introduce our heroine at so inauspi¬ 
cious a juncture, we would entreat for a mood 
of due solemnity in the spectators of her fate. 
Let us behold, in poor Hepzibah, the imme¬ 
morial lady, — two hundred years old, on this 
side of the water, and thrice as many on the 
other, — with her antique portraits, pedigrees, 
coats of arms, records and traditions, and her 
claim, as joint heiress, to that princely territory 
at the eastward, no longer a wilderness, but a 
populous fertility, — born, too, in Pyncheon 
Street, under the Pyncheon Elm, and in the 
5i 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


Pyncheon House, where she has spent all her 
days, — reduced now, in that very house, to be 
the hucksteress of a cent-shop. 

This business of setting up a petty shop is 
almost the only resource of women, in circum¬ 
stances at all similar to those of our unfortu¬ 
nate recluse. With her near-sightedness, and 
those tremulous fingers of hers, at once inflexi¬ 
ble and delicate, she could not be a seamstress ; 
although her sampler, of fifty years gone by, 
exhibited some of the most recondite specimens 
of ornamental needlework. A school for little 
children had been often in her thoughts; and, 
at one time, she had begun a review of her early 
studies in the New England Primer, with a view 
to prepare herself for the office of instructress. 
But the love of children had never been quick¬ 
ened in Hepzibah’s heart, and was now torpid, 
if not extinct; she watched the little people of 
the neighborhood from her chamber window, 
and doubted whether she could tolerate a more 
intimate acquaintance with them. Besides, in 
our day, the very ABC has become a science 
greatly too abstruse to be any longer taught by 
pointing a pin from letter to letter. A modern 
child could teach old Hepzibah more than old 
Hepzibah could teach the child. So — with 
many a cold, deep heart-quake at the idea of at 
last coming into sordid contact with the world, 
from which she had so long kept aloof, while 
52 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


every added day of seclusion had rolled another 
stone against the cavern door of her hermitage 
— the poor thing bethought herself of the an¬ 
cient shop-window, the rusty scales, and dusty 
till. She might have held back a little longer; 
but another circumstance, not yet hinted at, 
had somewhat hastened her decision. Her 
humble preparations, therefore, were duly made, 
and the enterprise was now to be commenced. 
Nor was she entitled to complain of any re¬ 
markable singularity in her fate ; for, in the 
town of her nativity, we might point to several 
little shops of a similar description, some of 
them in houses as ancient as that of the Seven 
Gables ; and one or two, it may be, where a 
decayed gentlewoman stands behind the coun¬ 
ter, as grim an image of family pride as Miss 
Hepzibah Pyncheon herself. 

It was overpoweringly ridiculous, — we must 
honestly confess it, — the deportment of the 
maiden lady while setting her shop in order for 
the public eye. She stole on tiptoe to the 
window, as cautiously as if she conceived some 
bloody-minded villain to be watching behind 
the elm-tree, with intent to take her life. 
Stretching out her long, lank arm, she put a 
paper of pearl buttons, a jewVharp, or what¬ 
ever the small article might be, in its destined 
place, and straightway vanished back into the 
dusk, as if the world need never hope for an- 
53 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


other glimpse of her. It might have been fan¬ 
cied, indeed, that she expected to minister to 
the wants of the community unseen, like a dis¬ 
embodied divinity or enchantress, holding forth 
her bargains to the reverential and awe-stricken 
purchaser in an invisible hand. But Hepzibah 
had no such flattering dream. She was well 
aware that she must ultimately come forward, 
and stand revealed in her proper individuality; 
but, like other sensitive persons, she could not 
bear to be observed in the gradual process, and 
chose rather to flash forth on the world’s aston¬ 
ished gaze at once. 

The inevitable moment was not much longer 
to be delayed. The sunshine might now be 
seen stealing down the front of the opposite 
house, from the windows of which came a re¬ 
flected gleam, struggling through the boughs 
of the elm-tree, and enlightening the interior 
of the shop more distinctly than heretofore. 
The town appeared to be waking up. A bak¬ 
er’s cart had already rattled through the street, 
chasing away the latest vestige of night’s sanc¬ 
tity with the jingle-jangle of its dissonant bells. 
A milkman was distributing the contents of his 
cans from door to door; and the harsh peal of 
a fisherman’s conch shell was heard far off, 
around the corner. None of these tokens es¬ 
caped Hepzibah’s notice. The moment had 
arrived. To delay longer would be only to 
54 


THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW 


lengthen out her misery. Nothing remained, 
except to take down the bar from the shop- 
door, leaving the entrance free — more than 
free — welcome, as if all were household friends 

— to every passer-by, whose eyes might be 
attracted by the commodities at the window. 
This last act Hepzibah now performed, letting 
the bar fall with what smote upon her excited 
nerves as a most astounding clatter. Then — 
as if the only barrier betwixt herself and the 
world had been thrown down, and a flood of 
evil consequences would come tumbling through 
the gap — she fled into the inner parlor, threw 
herself into the ancestral elbow-chair, and wept. 

Our miserable old Hepzibah ! It is a heavy 
annoyance to a writer, who endeavors to repre¬ 
sent nature, its various attitudes and circum¬ 
stances, in a reasonably correct outline and true 
coloring, that so much of the mean and ludi¬ 
crous should be hopelessly mixed up with the 
purest pathos which life anywhere supplies to 
him. What tragic dignity, for example, can be 
wrought into a scene like this ! How can we 
elevate our history of retribution for the sin of 
long ago, when, as one of our most prominent 
figures, we are compelled to introduce — not a 
young and lovely woman, nor even the stately 
remains of beauty, storm-shattered by affliction 

— but a gaunt, sallow, rusty-jointed maiden, in 
a long-waisted silk gown, and with the strange 

55 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

horror of a turban on her head ! Her visage 
is not even ugly. It is redeemed from insig¬ 
nificance only by the contraction of her eye¬ 
brows into a near-sighted scowl. And, finally, 
her great life-trial seems to be, that, after sixty 
years of idleness, she finds it convenient to earn 
comfortable bread by setting up a shop in a 
small way. Nevertheless, if we look through 
all the heroic fortunes of mankind, we shall find 
this same entanglement of something mean and 
trivial with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow. 
Life is made up of marble and mud. And, 
without all the deeper trust in a comprehen¬ 
sive sympathy above us, we might hence be led 
to suspect the insult of a sneer, as well as an 
immitigable frown, on the iron countenance of 
fate. What is called poetic insight is the gift 
of discerning, in this sphere of strangely min¬ 
gled elements, the beauty and the majesty which 
are compelled to assume a garb so sordid. 

56 


Ill 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 

M ISS HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON 
sat in the oaken elbow-chair, with her 
hands over her face, giving way to 
that heavy down-sinking of the heart which 
most persons have experienced, when the image 
of hope itself seems ponderously moulded of 
lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once doubtful 
and momentous. She was suddenly startled by 
the tinkling alarum — high, sharp, and irreg¬ 
ular— of a little bell. The maiden lady arose 
upon her feet, as pale as a ghost at cock-crow ; 
for she was an enslaved spirit, and this the tal¬ 
isman to which she owed obedience. This little 
bell, — to speak in plainer terms, — being fas¬ 
tened over the shop-door, was so contrived as 
to vibrate by means of a steel spring, and thus 
convey notice to the inner regions of the house 
when any customer should cross the threshold. 
Its ugly and spiteful little din (heard now for 
the first time, perhaps, since Hepzibah’s peri¬ 
wigged predecessor had retired from trade) at 
once set every nerve of her body in responsive 
57 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and tumultuous vibration. The crisis was upon 
her ! Her first customer was at the door ! 

Without giving herself time for a second 
thought, she rushed into the shop, pale, wild, 
desperate in gesture and expression, scowling 
portentously, and looking far better qualified 
to do fierce battle with a housebreaker than 
to stand smiling behind the counter, barter¬ 
ing small wares for a copper recompense. Any 
ordinary customer, indeed, would have turned 
his back and fled. And yet there was nothing 
fierce in Hepzibah’s poor old heart; nor had 
she, at the moment, a single bitter thought 
against the world at large, or one individual 
man or woman. She wished them all well, but 
wished, too, that she herself were done with 
them, and in her quiet grave. 

The applicant, by this time, stood within the 
doorway. Coming freshly, as he did, out of 
the morning light, he appeared to have brought 
some of its cheery influences into the shop 
along with him. It was a slender young man, 
not more than one or two and twenty years old, 
with rather a grave and thoughtful expression 
for his years, but likewise a springy alacrity and 
vigor. These qualities were not only percepti¬ 
ble, physically, in his make and motions, but 
made themselves felt almost immediately in his 
character. A brown beard, not too silken in 
its texture, fringed his chin, but as yet without 
58 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


completely hiding it; he wore a short mus¬ 
tache, too, and his dark, high-featured counte¬ 
nance looked all the better for these natural 
ornaments. As for his dress, it was of the sim¬ 
plest kind : a summer sack of cheap and ordi¬ 
nary material, thin checkered pantaloons, and a 
straw hat, by no means of the finest braid. Oak 
Hall might have supplied his entire equipment. 
He was chiefly marked as a gentleman — if 
such, indeed, he made any claim to be — by 
the rather remarkable whiteness and nicety of 
his clean linen. 

He met the scowl of old Hepzibah without 
apparent alarm, as having heretofore encoun¬ 
tered it and found it harmless. 

cc So, my dear Miss Pyncheon,” said the 
daguerreotypist, — for it was that sole other 
occupant of the seven-gabled mansion, — “ I 
am glad to see that you have not shrunk from 
your good purpose. I merely look in to offer 
my best wishes, and to ask if I can assist you 
any further in your preparations.” 

People in difficulty and distress, or in any 
manner at odds with the world, can endure a 
vast amount of harsh treatment, and perhaps 
be only the stronger for it; whereas they give 
way at once before the simplest expression of 
what they perceive to be genuine sympathy. 
So it proved with poor Hepzibah; for, when 
she saw the young man's smile, — looking so 
59 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


much the brighter on a thoughtful face, — and 
heard his kindly tone, she broke first into a 
hysteric giggle and then began to sob. 

“ Ah, Mr. Holgrave,” cried she, as soon as 
she could speak, “ I never can go through with 
it! Never, never, never ! I wish I were dead, 
and in the old family tomb, with all my fore¬ 
fathers ! With my father, and my mother, and 
my sister ! Yes, and with my brother, who had 
far better find me there than here ! The world 
is too chill and hard, — and I am too old, and 
too feeble, and too hopeless ! ” 

cc Oh, believe me, Miss Hepzibah,” said the 
young man quietly, “ these feelings will not 
trouble you any longer, after you are once 
fairly in the midst of your enterprise. They 
are unavoidable at this moment, standing, as 
you do, on the outer verge of your long seclu¬ 
sion, and peopling the world with ugly shapes, 
which you will soon find to be as unreal as the 
giants and ogres of a child’s story-book. I find 
nothing so singular in life, as that everything 
appears to lose its substance the instant one 
actually grapples with it. So it will be with 
what you think so terrible.” 

cc But I am a woman ! ” said Hepzibah pit¬ 
eously. “ I was going to say, a lady, — but 
I consider that as past.” 

“ Well; no matter if it be past! ” answered 
the artist, a strange gleam of half-hidden sar- 
60 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


casm flashing through the kindliness of his 
manner. “ Let it go! You are the better 
without it. I speak frankly, my dear Miss 
Pyncheon! for are we not friends ? I look 
upon this as one of the fortunate days of your 
life. It ends an epoch and begins one. Hith¬ 
erto, the life-blood has been gradually chilling 
in your veins as you sat aloof, within your cir¬ 
cle of gentility, while the rest of the world was 
fighting out its battle with one kind of neces¬ 
sity or another. Henceforth, you will at least 
have the sense of healthy and natural effort for 
a purpose, and of lending your strength — 
be it great or small — to the united struggle 
of mankind. This is success, — all the success 
that anybody meets with ! ” 

“ It is natural enough, Mr. Holgrave, that 
you should have ideas like these,” rejoined 
Hepzibah, drawing up her gaunt figure with 
slightly offended dignity. “ You are a man, a 
young man, and brought up, I suppose, as 
almost everybody is nowadays, with a view to 
seeking your fortune. But I was born a lady, 
and have always lived one ; no matter in what 
narrowness of means, always a lady ! ” 

cc But I was not born a gentleman ; neither 
have I lived like one,” said Holgrave, slightly 
smiling ; “ so, my dear madam, you will hardly 
expect me to sympathize with sensibilities of 
this kind ; though, unless I deceive myself, I 
61 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

have some imperfect comprehension of them. 
These names of gentleman and lady had a 
meaning, in the past history of the world, and 
conferred privileges, desirable or otherwise, on 
those entitled to bear them. In the present — 
and still more in the future condition of society 
— they imply, not privilege, but restriction ! ” 
“ These are new notions,” said the old gen¬ 
tlewoman, shaking her head. “ I shall never 
understand them ; neither do I wish it.” 

“We will cease to speak of them, then,” 
replied the artist, with a friendlier smile than his 
last one, “ and I will leave you to feel whether 
it is not better to be a true woman than a lady. 
Do you really think, Miss Hepzibah, that any 
lady of your family has ever done a more heroic 
thing, since this house was built, than you are 
performing in it to-day? Never; and if the 
Pyncheons had always acted so nobly, I doubt 
whether an old wizard Maule’s anathema, of 
which you told me once, would have had much 
weight with Providence against them.” 

“ Ah !— no, no ! ” said Hepzibah, not dis¬ 
pleased at this allusion to the sombre dignity 
of an inherited curse. “ If old Maule’s ghost, 
or a descendant of his, could see me behind the 
counter to-day, he would call it the fulfilment 
of his worst wishes. But I thank you for your 
kindness, Mr. Holgrave, and will do my utmost 
to be a good shop-keeper.” 

62 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


“ Pray do,” said Holgrave, “and let me have 
the pleasure of being your first customer. I 
am about taking a walk to the seashore, before 
going to my rooms, where I misuse Heaven’s 
blessed sunshine by tracing out human fea¬ 
tures through its agency. A few of those bis¬ 
cuits, dipt in sea-water, will be just what I need 
for breakfast. What is the price of half a 
dozen ? ” 

“ Let me be a lady a moment longer,” re¬ 
plied Hepzibah, with a manner of antique 
stateliness to which a melancholy smile lent a 
kind of grace. She put the biscuits into his 
hand, but rejected the compensation. “ A 
Pyncheon must not, at all events under her 
forefathers’ roof, receive money for a morsel of 
bread from her only friend ! ” 

Holgrave took his departure, leaving her, 
for the moment, with spirits not quite so much 
depressed. Soon, however, they had subsided 
nearly to their former dead level. With a beat¬ 
ing heart, she listened to the footsteps of early 
passengers, which now began to be frequent 
along the street. Once or twice they seemed 
to linger; these strangers, or neighbors, as the 
case might be, were looking at the display of 
toys and petty commodities in Hepzibah’s 
shop-window. She was doubly tortured ; in 
part, with a sense of overwhelming shame that 
strange and unloving eyes should have the priv- 

63 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ilege of gazing, and partly because the idea 
occurred to her, with ridiculous importunity, 
that the window was not arranged so skilfully, 
nor nearly to so much advantage, as it might 
have been. It seemed as if the whole fortune 
or failure of her shop might depend on the 
display of a different set of articles, or substi¬ 
tuting a fairer apple for one which appeared to 
be specked. So she made the change, and 
straightway fancied that everything was spoiled 
by it; not recognizing that it was the ner¬ 
vousness of the juncture, and her own native 
squeamishness as an old maid, that wrought 
all the seeming mischief. 

Anon, there was an encounter, just at the 
doorstep, betwixt two laboring men, as their 
rough voices denoted them to be. After some 
slight talk about their own affairs, one of them 
chanced to notice the shop-window, and directed 
the other’s attention to it. 

“ See here! ” cried he ; “ what do you think 
of this? Trade seems to be looking up in 
Pyncheon Street! ” 

“ Well, well, this is a sight, to be sure!”' 
exclaimed the other. “ In the old Pyncheon 
House, and underneath the Pyncheon Elm ! 
Who would have thought it ? Old Maid 
Pyncheon is setting up a cent-shop ! ” 

“ Will she make it go, think you, Dixey ; ” 
said his friend. “ I don’t call it a very good 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 

stand. There ’s another shop just round the 
corner.” 

“ Make it go! ” cried Dixey, with a most 
contemptuous expression, as if the very idea 
were impossible to be conceived. “ Not a bit 
of it! Why, her face — I Ve seen it, for I dug 
her garden for her one year — her face is 
enough to frighten the Old Nick himself, if he 
had ever so great a mind to trade with her. 
People can’t stand it, I tell you ! She scowls 
dreadfully, reason or none, out of pure ugliness 
of temper! ” 

“ Well, that’s not so much matter,” re¬ 
marked the other man. “ These sour-tem- 
pered folks are mostly handy at business, and 
know pretty well what they are about. But, 
as you say, I don’t think she ’ll do much. 
This business of keeping cent-shops is over¬ 
done, like all other kinds of trade, handicraft, 
and bodily labor. I know it, to my cost! My 
wife kept a cent-shop three months, and lost 
five dollars on her outlay! ” 

“ Poor business! ” responded Dixey, in a 
tone as if he were shaking his head, — “ poor 
business! ” 

For some reason or other, not very easy to 
analyze, there had hardly been so bitter a pang 
in all her previous misery about the matter as 
what thrilled Hepzibah’s heart on overhearing 
the above conversation. The testimony in re- 

65 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


gard to her scowl was frightfully important; it 
seemed to hold up her image wholly relieved 
from the false light of her self-partialities, and 
so hideous that she dared not look at it. She 
was absurdly hurt, moreover, by the slight and 
idle effect that her setting up shop — an event 
of such breathless interest to herself—appeared 
to have upon the public, of which these two 
men were the nearest representatives. A 
glance; a passing word or two ; a coarse laugh; 
and she was doubtless forgotten before they 
turned the corner ! They cared nothing for her 
dignity, and just as little for her degradation. 
Then, also, the augury of ill-success, uttered 
from the sure wisdom of experience, fell upon 
her half-dead hope like a clod into a grave. 
The man's wife had already tried the same ex¬ 
periment, and failed! How could the born 
lady, — the recluse of half a lifetime, utterly 
unpractised in the world, at sixty years of age, 
— how could she ever dream of succeeding, 
when the hard, vulgar, keen, busy, hackneyed 
New England woman had lost five dollars on 
her little outlay ! Success presented itself as 
an impossibility, and the hope of it as a wild 
hallucination. 

Some malevolent spirit, doing his utmost to 
drive Hepzibah mad, unrolled before her ima¬ 
gination a kind of panorama, representing the 
great thoroughfare of a city all astir with cus- 
66 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


tomers. So many and so magnificent shops 
as there were ! Groceries, toy-shops, dry-goods 
stores, with their immense panes of plate-glass, 
their gorgeous fixtures, their vast and complete 
assortments of merchandise, in which fortunes 
had been invested ; and those noble mirrors at 
the farther end of each establishment, doubling 
all this wealth by a brightly burnished vista of 
unrealities ! On one side of the street this 
splendid bazaar, with a multitude of perfumed 
and glossy salesmen, smirking, smiling, bowing, 
and measuring out the goods. On the other, 
the dusky old House of the Seven Gables, with 
the antiquated shop-window under its project¬ 
ing story, and Hepzibah herself, in a gown of 
rusty black silk, behind the counter, scowling 
at the world as it went by ! This mighty con¬ 
trast thrust itself forward as a fair expression 
of the odds against which she was to begin her 
struggle for a subsistence. Success ? Prepos¬ 
terous ! She would never think of it again ! 
The house might just as well be buried in an 
eternal fog while all other houses had the sun¬ 
shine on them ; for not a foot would ever cross 
the threshold, nor a hand so much as try the 
door ! 

But, at this instant, the shop-bell, right over 
her head, tinkled as if it were bewitched. The 
old gentlewoman’s heart seemed to be attached 
to the same steel spring, for it went through a 
67 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


series of sharp jerks, in unison with the sound. 
The door was thrust open, although no human 
form was perceptible on the other side of the 
half-window. Hepzibah, nevertheless, stood at 
a gaze, with her hands clasped, looking very 
much as if she had summoned up an evil spirit, 
and were afraid, yet resolved, to hazard the 
encounter. 

“ Heaven help me ! ” she groaned mentally. 
“ Now is my hour of need ! ” 

The door, which moved with difficulty on 
its creaking and rusty hinges, being forced quite 
open, a square and sturdy little urchin became 
apparent, with cheeks as red as an apple. He 
was clad rather shabbily (but, as it seemed, 
more owing to his mother’s carelessness than 
his father’s poverty), in a blue apron, very wide 
and short trousers, shoes somewhat out at the 
toes, and a chip hat, with the frizzles of his 
curly hair sticking through its crevices. A 
book and a small slate, under his arm, indicated 
that he was on his way to school. He stared 
at Hepzibah a moment, as an elder customer 
than himself would have been likely enough to 
do, not knowing what to make of the tragic at¬ 
titude and queer scowl wherewith she regarded 
him. 

“ Well, child,” said she, taking heart at sight 
of a personage so little formidable, — “ well, 
my child, what did you wish for ? ” 

68 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


c< That Jim Crow there in the window,” an¬ 
swered the urchin, holding out a cent, and 
pointing to the gingerbread figure that had 
attracted his notice, as he loitered along to 
school ; “ the one that has not a broken foot.” 

So Hepzibah put forth her lank arm, and, 
taking the effigy from the shop-window, deliv¬ 
ered it to her first customer. 

“No matter for the money,” said she, giving 
him a little push towards the door ; for her old 
gentility was contumaciously squeamish at sight 
of the copper coin, and, besides, it seemed such 
pitiful meanness to take the child’s pocket- 
money in exchange for a bit of stale ginger¬ 
bread. “No matter for the cent. You are 
welcome to Jim Crow.” 

The child, staring with round eyes at this 
instance of liberality, wholly unprecedented in 
his large experience of cent-shops, took the 
man of gingerbread, and quitted the premises. 
No sooner had he reached the sidewalk (little 
cannibal that he was !) than Jim Crow’s head 
was in his mouth. As he had not been careful 
to shut the door, Hepzibah was at the pains of 
closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation 
or two about the troublesomeness of young 
people, and particularly of small boys. She 
had just placed another representative of the 
renowned Jim Crow at the window, when again 
the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and again 
69 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the door being thrust open, with its character¬ 
istic jerk and jar, disclosed the same sturdy 
little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago, 
had made his exit. The crumbs and discolora¬ 
tion of the cannibal feast, as yet hardly con¬ 
summated, were exceedingly visible about his 
mouth. 

“ What is it now, child ? ” asked the maiden 
lady rather impatiently; “ did you come back 
to shut the door ? ” 

“ No,” answered the urchin, pointing to the 
figure that had just been put up ; “ I want that 
other Jim Crow.” 

“ Well, here it is for you,” said Hepzibah, 
reaching it down; but recognizing that this 
pertinacious customer would not quit her on 
any other terms, so long as she had a ginger¬ 
bread figure in her shop, she partly drew back 
her extended hand, “ Where is the cent ? ” 

The little boy had the cent ready, but, like 
a true-born Yankee, would have preferred the 
better bargain to the worse. Looking some¬ 
what chagrined, he put the coin into Hepzi- 
bah’s hand, and departed, sending the second 
Jim Crow in quest of the former one. The 
new shop-keeper dropped the first solid result 
of her commercial enterprise into the till. It 
was done ! The sordid stain of that copper 
coin could never be washed away from her 
palm. The little schoolboy, aided by the imp- 
70 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


ish figure of the negro dancer, had wrought an 
irreparable ruin. The structure of ancient aris¬ 
tocracy had been demolished by him, even as 
if his childish gripe had torn down the seven- 
gabled mansion. Now let Hepzibah turn the 
old Pyncheon portraits with their faces to the 
wall, and take the map of her Eastern territory 
to kindle the kitchen fire, and blow up the 
flame with the empty breath of her ancestral 
traditions ! What had she to do with ances¬ 
try ? Nothing ; no more than with posterity ! 
No lady, now, but simply Hepzibah Pyn¬ 
cheon, a forlorn old maid, and keeper of a 
cent-shop ! 

Nevertheless, even while she paraded these 
ideas somewhat ostentatiously through her 
mind, it is altogether surprising what a calmness 
had come over her. The anxiety and misgiv¬ 
ings which had tormented her, whether asleep 
or in melancholy day-dreams, ever since her 
project began to take an aspect of solidity, had 
now vanished quite away. She felt the novelty 
of her position, indeed, but no longer with dis¬ 
turbance or affright. Now and then, there came 
a thrill of almost youthful enjoyment. It was 
the invigorating breath of a fresh outward at¬ 
mosphere, after the long torpor and monoto¬ 
nous seclusion of her life. So wholesome is 
effort! So miraculous the strength that we do 
not know of! The healthiest glow that Hepzi- 
7 1 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


bah had known for years had come now in the 
dreaded crisis, when, for the first time, she had 
put forth her hand to help herself. The little 
circlet of the schoolboy's copper coin — dim 
and lustreless though it was, with the small ser¬ 
vices which it had been doing here and there 
about the world — had proved a talisman, fra¬ 
grant with good, and deserving to be set in gold 
and worn next her heart. It was as potent, and 
perhaps endowed with the same kind of efficacy, 
as a galvanic ring! Hepzibah, at all events, 
was indebted to its subtile operation both in 
body and spirit; so much the more, as it in¬ 
spired her with energy to get some breakfast, 
at which, still the better to keep up her courage, 
she allowed herself an extra spoonful in her 
infusion of black tea. 

Her introductory day of shop-keeping did 
not run on, however, without many and serious 
interruptions of this mood of cheerful vigor. 
As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes 
to mortals any more than just that degree of 
encouragement which suffices to keep them at 
a reasonably full exertion of their powers. In 
the case of our old gentlewoman, after the 
excitement of new effort had subsided, the de¬ 
spondency of her whole life threatened, ever and 
anon, to return. It was like the heavy mass 
of clouds which we may often see obscuring the 
sky, and making a gray twilight everywhere, 
72 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


until, towards nightfall, it yields temporarily to 
a glimpse of sunshine. But, always, the envious 
cloud strives to gather again across the streak 
of celestial azure. 

Customers came in, as the forenoon ad¬ 
vanced, but rather slowly; in some cases, too, 
it must be owned, with little satisfaction either 
to themselves or Miss Hepzibah; nor, on the 
whole, with an aggregate of very rich emolu¬ 
ment to the till. A little girl, sent by her 
mother to match a skein of cotton thread, of a 
peculiar hue, took one that the near-sighted old 
lady pronounced extremely like, but soon came 
running back, with a blunt and cross message, 
that it would not do, and, besides, was very 
rotten ! Then, there was a pale, care-wrinkled 
woman, not old but haggard, and already with 
streaks of gray among her hair, like silver rib¬ 
bons ; one of those women, naturally delicate, 
whom you at once recognize as worn to death 
by a brute — probably a drunken brute — of 
a husband, and at least nine children. She 
wanted a few pounds of flour, and offered the 
money, which the decayed gentlewoman silently 
rejected, and gave the poor soul better measure 
than if she had taken it. Shortly afterwards, a 
man in a blue cotton frock, much soiled, came 
in and bought a pipe, filling the whole shop, 
meanwhile, with the hot odor of strong drink, 
not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere of his 
73 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


breath, but oozing out of his entire system, like 
an inflammable gas. It was impressed on 
Hepzibah’s mind that this was the husband 
of the care-wrinkled woman. He asked for a 
paper of tobacco; and as she had neglected to 
provide herself with the article, her brutal cus¬ 
tomer dashed down his newly bought pipe and 
left the shop, muttering some unintelligible 
words, which had the tone and bitterness of 
a curse. Hereupon Hepzibah threw up her 
eyes, unintentionally scowling in the face of 
Providence ! 

No les^ than five persons, during the fore¬ 
noon, inquired for ginger-beer, or root-beer, or 
any drink of a similar brewage, and, obtaining 
nothing of the kind, went off in an exceedingly 
bad humor. Three of them left the door open, 
and the other two pulled it so spitefully in go¬ 
ing out that the little bell played the very deuce 
with Hepzibah’s nerves. A round, bustling, 
fire-ruddy housewife of the neighborhood burst 
breathless into the shop, fiercely demanding 
yeast; and when the poor gentlewoman, with 
her cold shyness of manner, gave her hot cus¬ 
tomer to understand that she did not keep the 
article, this very capable housewife took upon 
herself to administer a regular rebuke. 

“ A cent-shop, and no yeast! ” quoth she ; 
“ that will never do ! Who ever heard of such 
a thing ? Your loaf will never rise, no more 
74 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


than mine will to-day. You had better shut up 
shop at once.” 

“ Well,” said Hepzibah, heaving a deep sigh, 
“ perhaps I had ! ” 

Several times, moreover, besides the above 
instance, her lady-like sensibilities were seri¬ 
ously infringed upon by the familiar, if not 
rude, tone with which people addressed her. 
They evidently considered themselves not 
merely her equals, but her patrons and supe¬ 
riors. Now, Hepzibah had unconsciously flat¬ 
tered herself with the idea that there would be 
a gleam or halo, of some kind or other, about 
her person, which would insure an obeisance 
to her sterling gentility, or, at least, a tacit 
recognition of it. On the other hand, nothing 
tortured her more intolerably than when this 
recognition was too prominently expressed. To 
one or two rather officious offers of sympathy, 
her responses were little short of acrimonious; 
and, we regret to say, Hepzibah was thrown 
into a positively unchristian state of mind by 
the suspicion that one of her customers was 
drawn to the shop, not by any real need of the 
article which she pretended to seek, but by a 
wicked wish to stare at her. The vulgar crea¬ 
ture was determined to see for herself what sort 
of a figure a mildewed piece of aristocracy, after 
wasting all the bloom and much of the decline 
of her life apart from the world, would cut 
75 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


behind a counter. In this particular case, how¬ 
ever mechanical and innocuous it might be at 
other times, Hepzibah’s contortion of brow 
served her in good stead. 

“ I never was so frightened in my life ! ” said 
the curious customer, in describing the incident 
to one of her acquaintances. cc She ’s a real 
old vixen, take my word of it! She says little, 
to be sure ; but if you could only see the mis¬ 
chief in her eye! ” 

On the whole, therefore, her new experience 
led our decayed gentlewoman to very disagree¬ 
able conclusions as to the temper and manners 
of what she termed the lower classes, whom 
heretofore she had looked down upon with a 
gentle and pitying complaisance, as herself oc¬ 
cupying a sphere of unquestionable superiority. 
But, unfortunately, she had likewise to strug¬ 
gle against a bitter emotion of a directly oppo¬ 
site kind : a sentiment of virulence, we mean, 
towards the idle aristocracy to which it had so 
recently been her pride to belong. When a 
lady, in a delicate and costly summer garb, with 
a floating veil and gracefully swaying gown, 
and, altogether, an ethereal lightness that made 
you look at her beautifully slippered feet, to 
see whether she trod on the dust or floated in 
the air, — when such a vision happened to pass 
through this retired street, leaving it tenderly 
and delusively fragrant with her passage, as if 
76 


THE FIRST CUSTOMER 


a bouquet of tea-roses had been borne along, 

— then again, it is to be feared, old Hepzibah’s 
scowl could no longer vindicate itself entirely 
on the plea of near-sightedness. 

“ For what end,” thought she, giving vent to 
that feeling of hostility which is the only real 
abasement of the poor in presence of the rich, 

— “ for what good end, in the wisdom of Prov¬ 
idence, does that woman live ? Must the whole 
world toil, that the palms of her hands may 
be kept white and delicate ? ” 

Then, ashamed and penitent, she hid her 
face. 

“ May God forgive me ! ” said she. 

Doubtless, God did forgive her. But, taking 
the inward and outward history of the first half¬ 
day into consideration, Hepzibah began to fear 
that the shop would prove her ruin in a moral 
and religious point of view, without contribut¬ 
ing very essentially towards even her temporal 
welfare. 


77 


IV 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

T OWARDS noon, Hepzibah saw an 
elderly gentleman, large and portly, 
and of remarkably dignified demeanor, 
passing slowly along on the opposite side of the 
white and dusty street. On coming within the 
shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, he stopt, and 
(taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the per¬ 
spiration from his brow) seemed to scrutinize, 
with especial interest, the dilapidated and rusty- 
visaged House of the Seven Gables. He him¬ 
self, in a very different style, was as well worth 
looking at as the house. No better model 
need be sought, nor could have been found, of 
a very high order of respectability, which, by 
some indescribable magic, not merely expressed 
itself in his looks and gestures, but even gov¬ 
erned the fashion of his garments, and rendered 
them all proper and essential to the man. With¬ 
out appearing to differ, in any tangible way, from 
other people’s clothes, there was yet a wide and 
rich gravity about them that must have been 
a characteristic of the wearer, since it could not 
be defined as pertaining either to the cut or 
78 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


material. His gold-headed cane, too, — a ser¬ 
viceable staff, of dark polished wood, — had 
similar traits, and, had it chosen to take a walk 
by itself, would have been recognized anywhere 
as a tolerably adequate representative of its 
master. This character — which showed itself 
so strikingly in everything about him, and the 
effect of which we seek to convey to the reader 
— went no deeper than his station, habits of 
life, and external circumstances. One perceived 
him to be a personage of marked influence and 
authority; and, especially, you could feel just 
as certain that he was opulent as if he had ex¬ 
hibited his bank account, or as if you had seen 
him touching the twigs of the Pyncheon Elm, 
and, Midas-like, transmuting them to gold. 

In his youth, he had probably been consid¬ 
ered a handsome man ; at his present age, his 
brow was too heavy, his temples too bare, his re¬ 
maining hair too gray, his eye too cold, his lips 
too closely compressed, to bear any relation to 
mere personal beauty. He would have made a 
good and massive portrait; better now, perhaps, 
than at any previous period of his life, although 
his look might grow positively harsh in the 
process of being fixed upon the canvas. The 
artist would have found it desirable to study 
his face, and prove its capacity for varied ex¬ 
pression ; to darken it with a frown, — to kin¬ 
dle it up with a smile. 


79 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


While the elderly gentleman stood looking 
at the Pyncheon House, both the frown and 
the smile passed successively over his counte¬ 
nance. His eye rested on the shop-window, 
and putting up a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, 
which he held in his hand, he minutely surveyed 
Hepzibah’s little arrangement of toys and com¬ 
modities. At first it seemed not to please him, 
— nay, to cause him exceeding displeasure, — 
and yet, the very next moment, he smiled. 
While the latter expression was yet on his lips, 
he caught a glimpse of Hepzibah, who had 
involuntarily bent forward to the window; and 
then the smile changed from acrid and disagree¬ 
able to the sunniest complacency and benevo¬ 
lence. He bowed, with a happy mixture of 
dignity and courteous kindliness, and pursued 
his way. 

“ There he is! ” said Hepzibah to herself, 
gulping down a very bitter emotion, and, since 
she could not rid herself of it, trying to drive 
it back into her heart. fC What does he think 
of it, I wonder ? Does it please him ? Ah ! 
he is looking back ! ” 

The gentleman had paused in the street, and 
turned himself half about, still with his eyes 
fixed on the shop-window. In fact, he wheeled 
wholly round, and commenced a step or two, 
as if designing to enter the shop ; but, as it 
chanced, his purpose was anticipated by Hep- 
80 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


zibah’s first customer, the little cannibal of Jim 
Crow, who, staring up at the window, was irre¬ 
sistibly attracted by an elephant of gingerbread. 
What a grand appetite had this small urchin ! 

— Two Jim Crows immediately after breakfast! 

— and now an elephant, as a preliminary whet 
before dinner ! By the time this latter pur¬ 
chase was completed, the elderly gentleman had 
resumed his way, and turned the street corner. 

cc Take it as you like, Cousin Jaffrey ! ” mut¬ 
tered the maiden lady, as she drew back, after 
cautiously thrusting out her head, and look¬ 
ing up and down the street, — “Take it as 
you like ! You have seen my little shop-win¬ 
dow ! Well ! — what have you to say ? — is 
not the Pyncheon House my own, while I’m 
alive ? ” 

After this incident, Hepzibah retreated to the 
back parlor, where she at first caught up a half- 
finished stocking, and began knitting at it with 
nervous and irregular jerks ; but quickly find¬ 
ing herself at odds with the stitches, she threw 
it aside, and walked hurriedly about the room. 
At length she paused before the portrait of the 
stern old Puritan, her ancestor, and the founder 
of the house. In one sense, this picture had 
almost faded into the canvas, and hidden itself 
behind the duskiness of age ; in another, she 
could not but fancy that it had been growing 
more prominent and strikingly expressive, ever 
81 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


since her earliest familiarity with it as a child. 
For, while the physical outline and substance 
were darkening away from the beholder's eye, 
the bold, hard, and, at the same time, indirect 
character of the man seemed to be brought out 
in a kind of spiritual relief. Such an effect may 
occasionally be observed in pictures of antique 
date. They acquire a look which an artist (if 
he have anything like the complacency of artists 
nowadays) would never dream of presenting to 
a patron as his own characteristic expression, 
but which, nevertheless, we at once recognize 
as reflecting the unlovely truth of a human soul. 
In such cases, the painter’s deep conception of 
his subject’s inward traits has wrought itself 
into the essence of the picture, and is seen after 
the superficial coloring has been rubbed off by 
time. 

While gazing at the portrait, Hepzibah trem¬ 
bled under its eye. Her hereditary reverence 
made her afraid to judge the character of the 
original so harshly as a perception of the truth 
compelled her to do. But still she gazed, be¬ 
cause the face of the picture enabled her — at 
least, she fancied so — to read more accurately, 
and to a greater depth, the face which she had 
just seen in the street. 

“ This is the very man ! ” murmured she to 
herself. “ Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he 
will, there is that look beneath ! Put on him 
82 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


a skull-cap, and a band, and a black cloak, and 
a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, 
— then let Jaffrey smile as he might, — nobody 
would doubt that it was the old Pyncheon come 
again. He has proved himself the very man 
to build up a new house ! Perhaps, too, to draw 
down a new curse ! ” 

Thus did Hepzibah bewilder herself with 
these fantasies of the old time. She had dwelt 
too much alone, — too long in the Pyncheon 
House, — until her very brain was impregnated 
with the dry-rot of its timbers. She needed 
a walk along the noonday street to keep her 
sane. 

By the spell of contrast, another portrait rose 
up before her, painted with more daring flattery 
than any artist would have ventured upon, but 
yet so delicately touched that the likeness re¬ 
mained perfect. Malbone’s miniature, though 
from the same original, was far inferior to Hep- 
zibah’s air-drawn picture, at which affection and 
sorrowful remembrance wrought together. Soft, 
mildly, and cheerfully contemplative, with full, 
red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the 
eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-up 
of their orbs ! Feminine traits, moulded insep¬ 
arably with those of the other sex ! The minia¬ 
ture, likewise, had this last peculiarity; so that 
you inevitably thought of the original as resem¬ 
bling his mother, and she a lovely and lovable 
83 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


woman, with perhaps some beautiful infirmity 
of character, that made it all the pleasanter to 
know and easier to love her. 

“ Yes,” thought Hepzibah, with grief of 
which it was only the more tolerable portion that 
welled up from her heart to her eyelids, “ they 
persecuted his mother in him ! He never was 
a Pyncheon ! ” 

But here the shop-bell rang; it was like a 
sound from a remote distance, — so far had 
Hepzibah descended into the sepulchral depths 
of her reminiscences. On entering the shop, 
she found an old man there, a humble resident 
of Pyncheon Street, and whom, for a great 
many years past, she had suffered to be a kind 
of familiar of the house. He was an immemo¬ 
rial personage, who seemed always to have had 
a white head and wrinkles, and never to have 
possessed but a single tooth, and that a half- 
decayed one, in the front of the upper jaw. 
Well advanced as Hepzibah was, she could not 
remember when Uncle Venner, as the neigh¬ 
borhood called him, had not gone up and down 
the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet 
heavily over the gravel or pavement. But still 
there was something tough and vigorous about 
him, that not only kept him in daily breath, 
but enabled him to fill a place which would 
else have been vacant in the apparently crowded 
world. To go of errands with his slow and 
84 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

shuffling gait, which made you doubt how he 
ever was to arrive anywhere ; to saw a small 
household's foot or two of firewood, or knock 
to pieces an old barrel, or split up a pine board 
for kindling-stuff; in summer, to dig the few 
yards of garden ground appertaining to a low- 
rented tenement, and share the produce of his 
labor at the halves ; in winter, to shovel away 
the snow from the sidewalk, or open paths to 
the woodshed, or along the clothes-line; such 
were some of the essential offices which Uncle 
Venner performed among at least a score of 
families. Within that circle, he claimed the 
same sort of privilege, and probably felt as much 
warmth of interest, as a clergyman does in the 
range of his parishioners. Not that he laid claim 
to the tithe pig; but, as an analogous mode of 
reverence, he went his rounds, every morning, 
to gather up the crumbs of the table and over¬ 
flowings of the dinner-pot, as food for a pig of 
his own. 

In his younger days — for, after all, there was 
a dim tradition that he had been, not young, 
but younger — Uncle Venner was commonly 
regarded as rather deficient, than otherwise, in 
his wits. In truth he had virtually pleaded 
guilty to the charge, by scarcely aiming at such 
success as other men seek, and by taking only 
that humble and modest part in the intercourse 
of life which belongs to the alleged deficiency. 
85 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


But now, in his extreme old age, — whether it 
were that his long and hard experience had 
actually brightened him, or that his decaying 
judgment rendered him less capable of fairly 
measuring himself, — the venerable man made 
pretensions to no little wisdom, and really en¬ 
joyed the credit of it. There was likewise, at 
times, a vein of something like poetry in him; 
it was the moss or wall-flower of his mind in its 
small dilapidation, and gave a charm to what 
might have been vulgar and commonplace in 
his earlier and middle life. Hepzibah had a 
regard for him, because his name was ancient in 
the town and had formerly been respectable. It 
was a still better reason for awarding him a 
species of familiar reverence that Uncle Venner 
was himself the most ancient existence, whether 
of man or thing, in Pyncheon Street, except the 
House of the Seven Gables, and perhaps the 
elm that overshadowed it. 

This patriarch now presented himself before 
Hepzibah, clad in an old blue coat, which had 
a fashionable air, and must have accrued to him 
from the cast-off wardrobe of some dashing 
clerk. As for his trousers, they were of tow- 
cloth, very short in the legs, and bagging down 
strangely in the rear, but yet having a suitable¬ 
ness to his figure which his other garment 
entirely lacked. His hat had relation to no 
other part of his dress, and but very little to the 
86 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


head that wore it. Thus Uncle Venner was a 
miscellaneous old gentleman, partly himself, 
but, in good measure, somebody else; patched 
together, too, of different epochs ; an epitome 
of times and fashions. 

“ So, you have really begun trade,” said he, 
— “really begun trade! Well, I’m glad to 
see it. Young people should never live idle in 
the world, nor old ones neither, unless when the 
rheumatize gets hold of them. It has given 
me warning already; and in two or three years 
longer, I shall think of putting aside business 
and retiring to my farm. That’s yonder, — 
the great brick house, you know, — the work- 
house, most folks call it; but I mean to do my 
work first, and go there to be idle and enjoy 
myself. And I’m glad to see you beginning to 
do your work, Miss Hepzibah ! ” 

“Thank you, Uncle Venner,” said Hepzi¬ 
bah, smiling ; for she always felt kindly towards 
the simple and talkative old man. Had he 
been an old woman, she might probably have 
repelled the freedom, which she now took in 
good part. “It is time for me to begin work, 
indeed! Or, to speak the truth, I have just 
begun when I ought to be giving it up.” 

“ Oh, never say that, Miss Hepzibah! ” 
answered the old man. “You are a young 
woman yet. Why, I hardly thought myself 
younger than I am now, it seems so little while 

87 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

ago since I used to see you playing about the 
door of the old house, quite a small child! 
Oftener, though, you used to be sitting at the 
threshold, and looking gravely into the street; 
for you had always a grave kind of way with 
you, — a grown-up air, when you were only 
the height of my knee. It seems as if I saw 
you now; and your grandfather with his red 
cloak, and his white wig, and his cocked hat, 
and his cane, coming out of the house, and 
stepping so grandly up the street! Those old 
gentlemen that grew up before the Revolution 
used to put on grand airs. In my young days, 
the great man of the town was commonly called 
King; and his wife, not Queen to be sure, but 
Lady. Nowadays, a man would not dare to 
be called King; and if he feels himself a little 
above common folks, he only stoops so much 
the lower to them. I met your cousin, the 
Judge, ten minutes ago; and, in my old tow- 
cloth trousers, as you see, the Judge raised his 
hat to me, I do believe! At any rate, the 
Judge bowed and smiled ! ” 

“ Yes,” said Hepzibah, with something bit¬ 
ter stealing unawares into her tone ; “ my cou¬ 
sin Jaffrey is thought to have a very pleasant 
smile! ” 

“And so he has!” replied Uncle Venner. 
“ And that ’s rather remarkable in a Pyncheon ; 
for, begging your pardon, Miss Hepzibah, they 
88 


A miscellaneous old gentleman 















































































































































































—— 











































A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


never had the name of being an easy and agree¬ 
able set of folks. There was no getting close 
to them. But now. Miss Hepzibah, if an old 
man may be bold to ask, why don’t Judge 
Pyncheon, with his great means, step forward, 
and tell his cousin to shut up her little shop at 
once ? It ’s for your credit to be doing some¬ 
thing, but it’s not for the Judge’s credit to let 
you ! ” 

“ We won’t talk of this, if you please, Uncle 
Venner,” said Hepzibah coldly. “ I ought to 
say, however, that, if I choose to earn bread 
for myself, it is not Judge Pyncheon’s fault. 
Neither will he deserve the blame,” added she 
more kindly, remembering Uncle Venner’s 
privileges of age and humble familiarity, “ if I 
should, by and by, find it convenient to retire 
with you to your farm.” 

“ And it’s no bad place, either, that farm of 
mine ! ” cried the old man cheerily, as if there 
were something positively delightful in the 
prospect. “ No bad place is the great brick 
farmhouse, especially for them that will find a 
good many old cronies there, as will be my case. 
I quite long to be among them, sometimes, of 
the winter evenings; for it is but dull business 
for a lonesome elderly man, like me, to be nod¬ 
ding, by the hour together, with no company 
but his air-tight stove. Summer or winter, 
there’s a great deal to be said in favor of my 
89 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


farm ! And, take it in the autumn, what can 
be pleasanter than to spend a whole day on the 
sunny side of a barn or a woodpile, chatting 
with somebody as old as one’s self; or, per¬ 
haps, idling away the time with a natural-born 
simpleton, who knows how to be idle, because 
even our busy Yankees never have found out 
how to put him to any use ? Upon my word, 
Miss Hepzibah, I doubt whether I Ve ever 
been so comfortable as I mean to be at my 
farm, which most folks call the workhouse. 
But you, — you ’re a young woman yet, — you 
never need go there ! Something still better 
will turn up for you. I’m sure of it! ” 

Hepzibah fancied that there was something 
peculiar in her venerable friend’s look and 
tone; insomuch, that she gazed into his face 
with considerable earnestness, endeavoring to 
discover what secret meaning, if any, might be 
lurking there. Individuals whose affairs have 
reached an utterly desperate crisis almost inva¬ 
riably keep themselves alive with hopes, so 
much the more airily magnificent as they have 
the less of solid matter within their grasp 
whereof to mould any judicious and moderate 
expectation of good. Thus, all the while Hep¬ 
zibah was perfecting the scheme of her little 
shop, she had cherished an unacknowledged 
idea that some harlequin trick of fortune would 
intervene in her favor. For example, an uncle 
90 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

— who had sailed for India fifty years before, 
and never been heard of since — might yet 
return, and adopt her to be the comfort of his 
very extreme and decrepit age, and adorn her 
with pearls, diamonds, and Oriental shawls and 
turbans, and make her the ultimate heiress of 
his unreckonable riches. Or the member of 
Parliament, now at the head of the English 
branch of the family, — with which the elder 
stock, on this side of the Atlantic, had held lit¬ 
tle or no intercourse for the last two centuries, 

— this eminent gentleman might invite Hep- 
zibah to quit the ruinous House of the Seven 
Gables, and come over to dwell with her kin¬ 
dred at Pyncheon Hall. But, for reasons the 
most imperative, she could not yield to his 
request. It was more probable, therefore, 
that the descendants of a Pyncheon who had 
emigrated to Virginia, in some past generation, 
and became a great planter there, — hearing of 
Hepzibah’s destitution, and impelled by the 
splendid generosity of character with which 
their Virginian mixture must have enriched the 
New England blood,— would send her a re¬ 
mittance of a thousand dollars, with a hint 
of repeating the favor annually. Or, — and, 
surely, anything so undeniably just could not 
be beyond the limits of reasonable anticipation, 

— the great claim to the heritage of Waldo 
County might finally be decided in favor of the 

9 1 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


Pyncheons ; so that, instead of keeping a cent- 
shop, Hepzibah would build a palace, and look 
down from its highest tower on hill, dale, forest, 
field, and town, as her own share of the ances¬ 
tral territory. 

These were some of the fantasies which she 
had long dreamed about; and, aided by these, 
Uncle Venner's casual attempt at encourage¬ 
ment kindled a strange festal glory in the poor, 
bare, melancholy chambers of her brain, as if 
that inner world were suddenly lighted up with 
gas. But either he knew nothing of her castles 
in the air, — as how should he ? — or else her 
earnest scowl disturbed his recollection, as it 
might a more courageous man's. Instead of 
pursuing any weightier topic, Uncle Venner 
was pleased to favor Hepzibah with some sage 
counsel in her shop-keeping capacity. 

“ Give no credit! ” — these were some of his 
golden maxims, — “ Never take paper money ! 
Look well to your change ! Ring the silver on 
the four-pound weight! Shove back all Eng¬ 
lish half-pence and base copper tokens, such as 
are very plenty about town ! At your leisure 
hours, knit children's woollen socks and mit¬ 
tens ! Brew your own yeast, and make your 
own ginger-beer! ” 

And while Hepzibah was doing her utmost 
to digest the hard little pellets of his already 
uttered wisdom, he gave vent to his final, and 
92 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

what he declared to be his all-important advice, 
as follows : — 

“ Put on a bright face for your customers, 
and smile pleasantly as you hand them what 
they ask for! A stale article, if you dip it in 
a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better 
than a fresh one that you Ve scowled upon.” 

To this last apothegm poor Hepzibah re¬ 
sponded with a sigh so deep and heavy that it 
almost rustled Uncle Venner quite away, like 
a withered leaf, — as he was, — before an au¬ 
tumnal gale. Recovering himself, however, he 
bent forward, and, with a good deal of feeling 
in his ancient visage, beckoned her nearer to 
him. 

“ When do you expect him home ? ” whis¬ 
pered he. 

“ Whom do you mean ? ” asked Hepzibah, 
turning pale. 

“ Ah ? you don't love to talk about it,” said 
Uncle Venner. “Well, well! we'll say no 
more, though there's word of it all over town. 
I remember him. Miss Hepzibah, before he 
could run alone ! ” 

During the remainder of the day, poor Hep¬ 
zibah acquitted herself even less creditably, as 
a shop-keeper, than in her earlier efforts. She 
appeared to be walking in a dream; or, more 
truly, the vivid life and reality assumed by her 
emotions made all outward occurrences unsub- 
93 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


stantial, like the teasing phantasms of a half¬ 
conscious slumber. She still responded, me¬ 
chanically, to the frequent summons of the 
shop-bell, and, at the demand of her custom¬ 
ers, went prying with vague eyes about the 
shop, proffering them one article after another, 
and thrusting aside — perversely, as most of 
them supposed — the identical thing they asked 
for. There is sad confusion, indeed, when the 
spirit thus flits away into the past, or into the 
more awful future, or, in any manner, steps 
across the spaceless boundary betwixt its own 
region and the actual world; where the body 
remains to guide itself as best it may, with lit¬ 
tle more than the mechanism of animal life. 
It is like death, without death's quiet privilege, 
— its freedom from mortal care. Worst of all, 
when the actual duties are comprised in such 
petty details as now vexed the brooding soul 
of the old gentlewoman. As the animosity of 
fate would have it, there was a great influx of 
custom in the course of the afternoon. Hep- 
zibah blundered to and fro about her small 
place of business, committing the most un¬ 
heard-of errors: now stringing up twelve, and 
now seven, tallow candles, instead of ten to 
the pound; selling ginger for Scotch snuff, 
pins for needles, and needles for pins; mis- 
reckoning her change, sometimes to the public 
detriment, and much oftener to her own; and 
94 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 


thus she went on, doing her utmost to bring 
chaos back again, until, at the close of the day’s 
labor, to her inexplicable astonishment, she 
found the money-drawer almost destitute of 
coin. After all her painful traffic, the whole 
proceeds were perhaps half a dozen coppers, 
and a questionable ninepence which ultimately 
proved to be copper likewise. 

At this price, or at whatever price, she re¬ 
joiced that the day had reached its end. Never 
before had she had such a sense of the intol¬ 
erable length of time that creeps between dawn 
and sunset, and of the miserable irksomeness 
of having aught to do, and of the better wis¬ 
dom that it would be to lie down at once, in 
sullen resignation, and let life, and its toils and 
vexations, trample over one’s prostrate body 
as they may ! Hepzibah’s final operation was 
with the little devourer of Jim Crow and the 
elephant, who now proposed to eat a camel. 
In her bewilderment, she offered him first a 
wooden dragoon, and next a handful of mar¬ 
bles ; neither of which being adapted to his else 
omnivorous appetite, she hastily held out her 
whole remaining stock of natural history in gin¬ 
gerbread, and huddled the small customer out 
of the shop. She then muffled the bell in an 
unfinished stocking, and put up the oaken bar 
across the door. 

During the latter process, an omnibus came 
95 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to a standstill under the branches of the elm- 
tree. Hepzibah’s heart was in her mouth. 
Remote and dusky, and with no sunshine on 
all the intervening space, was that region of 
the Past whence her only guest might be ex¬ 
pected to arrive ! Was she to meet him now? 

Somebody, at all events, was passing from 
the farthest interior of the omnibus towards its 
entrance. A gentleman alighted; but it was 
only to offer his hand to a young girl whose 
slender figure, nowise needing such assistance, 
now lightly descended the steps, and made an 
airy little jump from the final one to the side¬ 
walk. She rewarded her cavalier with a smile, 
the cheery glow of which was seen reflected on 
his own face as he reentered the vehicle. The 
girl then turned towards the House of the 
Seven Gables, to the door of which, mean¬ 
while, — not the shop-door, but the antique 
portal, — the omnibus man had carried a light 
trunk and a bandbox. First giving a sharp 
rap of the old iron knocker, he left his pas¬ 
senger and her luggage at the doorstep, and 
departed. 

“Who can it be?” thought Hepzibah, who 
had been screwing her visual organs into the 
acutest focus of which they were capable. 
“ The girl must have mistaken the house ! ” 

She stole softly into the hall, and, herself 
invisible, gazed through the dusty side-lights 
96 


A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER 

of the portal at the young, blooming, and very 
cheerful face which presented itself for admit¬ 
tance into the gloomy old mansion. It was 
a face to which almost any door would have 
opened of its own accord. 

The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, 
and yet so orderly and obedient to common 
rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was 
widely in contrast, at that moment, with every¬ 
thing about her. The sordid and ugly luxuri¬ 
ance of gigantic weeds that grew in the angle of 
the house, and the heavy projection that over¬ 
shadowed her, and the time-worn framework 
of the door, — none of these things belonged 
to her sphere. But, even as a ray of sunshine, 
fall into what dismal place it may, instantane¬ 
ously creates for itself a propriety in being there, 
so did it seem altogether fit that the girl should 
be standing at the threshold. It was no less 
evidently proper that the door should swing 
open to admit her. The maiden lady herself, 
sternly inhospitable in her first purposes, soon 
began to feel that the door ought to be shoved 
back, and the rusty key be turned in the re¬ 
luctant lock. 

cc Can it be Phoebe ? ” questioned she within 
herself. cc It must be little Phoebe ; for it can 
be nobody else, — and there is a look of her fa¬ 
ther about her, too ! But what does she want 
here ? And how like a country cousin, to come 
97 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


down upon a poor body in this way, without so 
much as a day's notice, or asking whether she 
would be welcome ! Well; she must-have a 
night's lodging, I suppose; and to-morrow the 
child shall go back to her mother ! ” 

Phoebe, it must be understood, was that one 
little offshoot of the Pyncheon race to whom 
we have already referred, as a native of a rural 
part of New England, where the old fashions 
and feelings of relationship are still partially 
kept up. In her own circle, it was regarded 
as by no means improper for kinsfolk to visit 
one another without invitation, or preliminary 
and ceremonious warning. Yet, in considera¬ 
tion of Miss Hepzibah’s recluse way of life, a 
letter had actually been written and despatched, 
conveying information of Phoebe’s projected 
visit. This epistle, for three or four days past, 
had been in the pocket of the penny-postman, 
who, happening to have no other business in 
Pyncheon Street, had not yet made it conven¬ 
ient to call at the House of the Seven Gables. 

“ No ! — she can stay only one night," said 
Hepzibah, unbolting the door. “ If Clifford 
were to find her here, it might disturb him ! " 
98 


*•’) • 


V 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 

P HGEBE PYNCHEON slept, on the 
night of her arrival, in a chamber that 
looked down on the garden of the old 
house. It fronted towards the east, so that at 
a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light 
came flooding through the window, and bathed 
the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own 
hue. There were curtains to Phoebe's bed ; a 
dark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons 
of a stuff which had been rich, and even mag¬ 
nificent, in its time ; but which now brooded 
over the girl like a cloud, making a night in 
that one corner, while elsewhere it was begin¬ 
ning to be day. The morning light, however, 
soon stole into the aperture at the foot of the 
bed, betwixt those faded curtains. Finding the 
new guest there, — with a bloom on her cheeks 
like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of 
departing slumber in her limbs, as when an 
early breeze moves the foliage, — the dawn 
kissed her brow. It was the caress which a 
dewy maiden — such as the Dawn is, immor¬ 
tally — gives to her sleeping sister, partly from 
99 


L, of C. 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the impulse of irresistible fondness, and partly 
as a pretty hint that it is time now to unclose 
her eyes. 

At the touch of those lips of light, Phoebe 
quietly awoke, and, for a moment, did not re¬ 
cognize where she was, nor how those heavy 
curtains chanced to be festooned around her. 
Nothing, indeed, was absolutely plain to her, 
except that it was now early morning, and that, 
whatever might happen next, it was proper, 
first of all, to get up and say her prayers. She 
was the more inclined to devotion from the grim 
aspect of the chamber and its furniture, espe¬ 
cially the tall, stiff chairs ; one of which stood 
close by her bedside, and looked as if some 
old-fashioned personage had been sitting there 
all night, and had vanished only just in season 
to escape discovery. 

When Phoebe was quite dressed, she peeped 
out of the window, and saw a rosebush in the 
garden. Being a very tall one, and of luxuri¬ 
ant growth, it had been propped up against the 
side of the house, and was literally covered with 
a rare and very beautiful species of white rose. 
A large portion of them, as the girl afterwards 
discovered, had blight or mildew at their hearts ; 
but, viewed at a fair distance, the whole rose¬ 
bush looked as if it had been brought from Eden 
that very summer, together with the mould in 
which it grew. The truth was, nevertheless, 
ioo 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheon,— 
she was Phoebe's great-great-grand-aunt, — in 
soil which, reckoning only its cultivation as a 
garden-plat, was now unctuous with nearly two 
hundred years of vegetable decay. Growing 
as they did, however, out of the old earth, the 
flowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to 
their Creator ; nor could it have been the less 
pure and acceptable because Phoebe's young 
breath mingled with it, as the fragrance floated 
past the window. Hastening down the creak¬ 
ing and carpetless staircase, she found her way 
into the garden, gathered some of the most 
perfect of the roses, and brought them to her 
chamber. 

Little Phoebe was one of those persons who 
possess, as their exclusive patrimony, the gift of 
practical arrangement. It is a kind of natural 
magic that enables these favored ones to bring 
out the hidden capabilities of things around 
them ; and particularly to give a look of com¬ 
fort and habitableness to any place which, 
for however brief a period, may happen to be 
their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed 
together by wayfarers through the primitive 
forest, would acquire the home aspect by one 
night's lodging of such a woman, and would 
retain it long after her quiet figure had disap¬ 
peared into the surrounding shade. No less a 
portion of such homely witchcraft was requisite 

IOI 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to reclaim, as it were, Phoebe's waste, cheerless, 
and dusky chamber, which had been untenanted 
so long — except by spiders, and mice, and 
rats, and ghosts — that it was all overgrown 
with the desolation which watches to obliterate 
every trace of man's happier hours. What was 
precisely Phoebe’s process we find it impossible 
to say. She appeared to have no preliminary 
design, but gave a touch here and another there; 
brought some articles of furniture to light and 
dragged others into the shadow; looped up or 
let down a window-curtain; and, in the course 
of half an hour, had fully succeeded in throwing 
a'kindly and hospitable smile over the apart¬ 
ment. No longer ago than the night before, 
it had resembled nothing so much as the old 
maid’s heart; for there was neither sunshine 
nor household fire in one nor the other, and, 
save for ghosts and ghostly reminiscences, not 
a guest, for many years gone by, had entered 
the heart or the chamber. 

There was still another peculiarity of this in¬ 
scrutable charm. The bedchamber, no doubt, 
was a chamber of very great and varied expe¬ 
rience, as a scene of human life: the joy of 
bridal nights had throbbed itself away here ; 
new immortals had first drawn earthly breath 
here ; and here old people had died. But — 
whether it were the white roses, or whatever the 
subtile influence might be — a person of deli- 
102 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


cate instinct would have known at once that it 
was now a maiden’s bedchamber, and had been 
purified of all former evil and sorrow by her 
sweet breath and happy thoughts. Her dreams 
of the past night, being such cheerful ones, 
had exorcised the gloom, and now haunted the 
chamber in its stead. 

After arranging matters to her satisfaction, 
Phoebe emerged from her chamber, with a pur¬ 
pose to descend again into the garden. Be¬ 
sides the rosebush, she had observed several 
other species of flowers growing there in a 
wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one an¬ 
other’s development (as is often the parallel 
case in human society) by their uneducated 
entanglement and confusion. At the head of 
the stairs, however, she met Hepzibah, who, it 
being still early, invited her into a' room which 
she would probably have called her boudoir, 
had her education embraced any such French 
phrase. It was strewn about with a few old 
books, and a work-basket, and a dusty writ¬ 
ing-desk ; and had, on one side, a large black 
article of furniture, of very strange appearance, 
which the old gentlewoman told Phoebe was a 
harpsichord. It looked more like a coffin than 
anything else ; and, indeed, — not having been 
played upon, or opened, for years, — there 
must have been a vast deal of dead music in 
it, stifled for want of air. Human finger was 
103 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


hardly known to have touched its chords since 
the days of Alice Pyncheon, who had learned 
the sweet accomplishment of melody in Eu¬ 
rope. 

Hepzibah bade her young guest sit down, 
and, herself taking a chair near by, looked as 
earnestly at Phoebe's trim little figure as if she 
expected to see right into its springs and mo¬ 
tive secrets. 

“ Cousin Phoebe,” said she, at last, “ I really 
can't see my way clear to keep you with me.'' 

These words, however, had not the inhos¬ 
pitable bluntness with which they may strike 
the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk 
before bedtime, had arrived at a certain degree 
of mutual understanding. Hepzibah knew 
enough to enable her to appreciate the circum¬ 
stances (resulting from the second marriage of 
the girl’s mother) which made it desirable for 
Phoebe to establish herself in another home. 
Nor did she misinterpret Phoebe’s character, 
and the genial activity pervading it, — one of 
the most valuable traits of the true New Eng¬ 
land woman,— which had impelled her forth, 
as might be said, to seek her fortune, but with 
a self-respecting purpose to confer as much 
benefit as she could anywise receive. As 
one of her nearest kindred, she had naturally 
betaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of 
forcing herself on her cousin's protection, but 
104 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


only for a visit of a week or two, which might 
be indefinitely extended, should it prove for 
the happiness of both. 

To Hepzibah’s blunt observation, therefore, 
Phoebe replied as frankly, and more cheer¬ 
fully. 

“ Dear cousin, I cannot tell how it will be,” 
said she. “ But I really think we may suit one 
another much better than you suppose.” 

“You are a nice girl, — I see it plainly,” 
continued Hepzibah ; “ and it is not any ques¬ 
tion as to that point which makes me hesitate. 
But, Phoebe, this house of mine is but a mel¬ 
ancholy place for a young person to be in. It 
lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in 
the garret and upper chambers, in winter-time, 
but it never lets in the sunshine ! And as for 
myself, you see what I am, — a dismal and 
lonesome old woman (for I begin to call my¬ 
self old, Phoebe), whose temper, I am afraid, is 
none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad 
as can be. I cannot make your life pleasant. 
Cousin Phoebe, neither can I so much as give 
you bread to eat.” 

“You will find me a cheerful little body,” 
answered Phoebe, smiling, and yet with a kind 
of gentle dignity; “ and I mean to earn my 
bread. You know I have not been brought 
up a Pyncheon. A girl learns many things in 
a New England village.” 

105 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Ah! Phoebe,” said Hepzibah, sighing, 
“ your knowledge would do but little for you 
here ! And then it is a wretched thought that 
you should fling away your young days in a 
place like this. Those cheeks would not be so 
rosy after a month or two. Look at my face ! ” 

— and, indeed, the contrast was very striking, 

— “you see how pale I am ! It is my idea 
that the dust and continual decay of these old 
houses are unwholesome for the lungs.” 

“ There is the garden, — the flowers to be 
taken care of,” observed Phoebe. “ I should 
keep myself healthy with exercise in the open 
air.” 

“ And, after all, child,” exclaimed Hepzi¬ 
bah, suddenly rising, as if to dismiss the sub¬ 
ject, “ it is not for me to say who shall be a 
guest or inhabitant of the old Pyncheon House. 
Its master is coming.” 

“ Do you mean Judge Pyncheon ? ” asked 
Phoebe in surprise. 

“Judge Pyncheon!” answered her cousin 
angrily. “He will hardly cross the threshold 
while I live! No, no! But, Phoebe, you 
shall see the face of him I speak of.” 

She went in quest of the miniature already 
described, and returned with it in her hand. 
Giving it to Phoebe, she watched her features 
narrowly, and with a certain jealously as to the 
106 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


mode in which the girl would show herself 
affected by the picture. 

“ How do you like the face ? ” asked Hep- 
zibah. 

“It is handsome! — it is very beautiful! ” 
said Phoebe admiringly. “ It is as sweet a 
face as a man’s can be, or ought to be. It has 
something of a child’s expression, — and yet 
not childish, — only one feels so very kindly 
towards him ! He ought never to suffer any¬ 
thing. One would bear much for the sake of 
sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it. Cousin 
Hepzibah ? ” 

“ Did you never hear,” whispered her cou¬ 
sin, bending towards her, “ of Clifford Pyn- 
cheon ? ” 

“ Never! I thought there were no Pyncheons 
left, except yourself and our cousin Jaffrey,” 
answered Phoebe. “ And yet I seem to have 
heard the name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes ! 
— from my father or my mother; but has he 
not been a long while dead ? ” 

“Well, well, child, perhaps he has!” said 
Hepzibah with a sad, hollow laugh; “ but, in 
old houses like this, you know, dead people are 
very apt to come back again ! We shall see. 
And, Cousin Phoebe, since, after all that I have 
said, your courage does not fail you, we will not 
part so soon. You are welcome, my child, for 
107 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the present, to such a home as your kinswoman 
can offer you.” 

With this measured, but not exactly cold 
assurance of a hospitable purpose, Hepzibah 
kissed her cheek. 

They now went below stairs, where Phoebe 
— not so much assuming the office as attracting 
it to herself, by the magnetism of innate fit¬ 
ness — took the most active part in preparing 
breakfast. The mistress of the house, mean¬ 
while, as is usual with persons of her stiff and 
unmalleable cast, stood mostly aside; willing 
to lend her aid, yet conscious that her natural 
inaptitude would be likely to impede the busi¬ 
ness in hand. Phoebe and the fire that boiled 
the teakettle were equally bright, cheerful, and 
efficient, in their respective offices. Hepzibah 
gazed forth from her habitual sluggishness, 
the necessary result of long solitude, as from 
another sphere. She could not help being in¬ 
terested, however, and even amused, at the 
readiness with which her new inmate adapted 
herself to the circumstances, and brought the 
house, moreover, and all its rusty old appliances, 
into a suitableness for her purposes. What¬ 
ever she did, too, was done without conscious 
effort, and with frequent outbreaks of song, 
which were exceedingly pleasant to the ear. 
This natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem 
like a bird in a shadowy tree; or conveyed 
108 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


the idea that the stream of life warbled through 
her heart as a brook sometimes warbles through 
a pleasant little dell. It betokened the cheer¬ 
iness of an active temperament, finding joy in 
its activity, and, therefore, rendering it beauti¬ 
ful; it was a New England trait, — the stern 
old stuff of Puritanism with a gold thread in 
the web. 

Hepzibah brought out some old silver 
spoons with the family crest upon them, and 
a china teaset painted over with grotesque fig¬ 
ures of man, bird, and beast, in as grotesque 
a landscape. These pictured people were odd 
humorists, in a world of their own, — a world 
of vivid brilliancy, so far as color went, and still 
unfaded, although the teapot and small cups 
were as ancient as the custom itself of tea¬ 
drinking. 

c< Your great-great-great-great-grandmother 
had these cups, when she was married,” said 
Hepzibah to Phoebe. <c She was a Davenport, 
of a good family. They were almost the first 
teacups ever seen in the colony ; and if one of 
them were to be broken, my heart would break 
with it. But it is nonsense to speak so about 
a brittle teacup, when I remember what my 
heart has gone through without breaking.” 

The cups — not having been used, perhaps, 
since Hepzibah’s youth — had contracted no 
small burden of dust, which Phoebe washed 
109 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

away with so much care and delicacy as to 
satisfy even the proprietor of this invaluable 
china. 

“ What a nice little housewife you are ! ” 
exclaimed the latter, smiling, and at the same 
time frowning so prodigiously that the smile 
was sunshine under a thunder-cloud. “ Do 
you do other things as well ? Are you as 
good at your book as you are at washing tea¬ 
cups ? ” 

“ Not quite, I am afraid,” said Phoebe, 
laughing at the form of Hepzibah’s question. 
“ But I was schoolmistress for the little chil¬ 
dren in our district last summer, and might have 
been so still.” 

“ Ah ! ’t is all very well ! ” observed the 
maiden lady, drawing herself up. “ But these 
things must have come to you with your mo¬ 
thers blood. I never knew a Pyncheon that 
had any turn for them.” 

It is very queer, but not the less true, that 
people are generally quite as vain, or even more 
so, of their deficiencies than of their available 
gifts; as was Hepzibah of this native inappli¬ 
cability, so to speak, of the Pyncheons to any 
useful purpose. She regarded it as an heredi¬ 
tary trait; and so, perhaps, it was, but unfortu¬ 
nately a morbid one, such as is often generated 
in families that remain long above the surface 
of society. 


no 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


Before they left the breakfast-table, the shop- 
bell rang sharply, and Hepzibah set down the 
remnant of her final cup of tea, with a look of 
sallow despair that was truly piteous to behold. 
In cases of distasteful occupation, the second 
day is generally worse than the first; we return 
to the rack with all the soreness of the pre¬ 
ceding torture in our limbs. At all events, 
Hepzibah had fully satisfied herself of the 
impossibility of ever becoming wonted to this 
peevishly obstreperous little bell. Ring as often 
as it might, the sound always smote upon her 
nervous system rudely and suddenly. And 
especially now, while, with her crested teaspoons 
and antique china, she was flattering herself with 
ideas of gentility, she felt an unspeakable disin¬ 
clination to confront a customer.' 

“ Do not trouble yourself, dear cousin ! ” 
cried Phoebe, starting lightly up. “ I am shop¬ 
keeper to-day.” 

“ You, child ! ” exclaimed Hepzibah. 
“ What can a little country girl know of such 
matters ? ” 

“ Oh, I have done all the shopping for the 
family at our village store,” said Phoebe. 
“ And I have had a table at a fancy fair, and 
made better sales than anybody. These things 
are not to be learnt; they depend upon a 
knack that comes, I suppose,” added she, smil¬ 
ing, “with one's mother’s blood. You shall 
hi 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


see that I am as nice a little saleswoman as I 
am a housewife ! ” 

The old gentlewoman stole behind Phoebe, 
and peeped from the passageway into the shop, 
to note how she would manage her undertak¬ 
ing. It was a case of some intricacy. A very 
ancient woman, in a white short gown and a 
green petticoat, with a string of gold beads 
about her neck, and what looked like a night¬ 
cap on her head, had brought a quantity of 
yarn to barter for the commodities of the shop. 
She was probably the very last person in town 
who still kept the time-honored spinning-wheel 
in constant revolution. It was worth while to 
hear the croaking and hollow tones of the old 
lady, and the pleasant voice of Phoebe, min¬ 
gling in one twisted thread of talk ; and still 
better to contrast their figures, — so light and 
bloomy, — so decrepit and dusky, — with only 
the counter betwixt them, in one sense, but 
more than threescore years, in another. As for 
the bargain, it was wrinkled slyness and craft 
pitted against native truth and sagacity. 

“Was not that well done? ” asked Phoebe, 
laughing, when the customer was gone. 

<c Nicely done, indeed, child ! ” answered 
Hepzibah. cc I could not have gone through 
with it nearly so well. As you say, it must be 
a knack that belongs to you on the mother’s 
side.” 


I 12 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


It is a very genuine admiration, that with 
which persons too shy or too awkward to take 
a due part in the bustling world regard the real 
actors in life’s stirring scenes ; so genuine, in 
fact, that the former are usually fain to make 
it palatable to their self-love, by assuming that 
these active and forcible qualities are incom¬ 
patible with others, which they choose to deem 
higher and more important. Thus, Hepzibah 
was well content to acknowledge Phoebe’s vastly 
superior gifts as a shop-keeper ; she listened, 
with compliant ear, to her suggestion of various 
methods whereby the influx of trade might be 
increased, and rendered profitable, without a 
hazardous outlay of capital. She consented 
that the village maiden should manufacture 
yeast, both liquid and in cakes ; and should 
brew a certain kind of beer, nectareous to the 
palate, and of rare stomachic virtues; and, 
moreover, should bake and exhibit for sale 
some little spice-cakes, which whosoever tasted 
would longingly desire to taste again. All 
such proofs of a ready mind and skilful handi¬ 
work were highly acceptable to the aristocratic 
hucksteress, so long as she could murmur to 
herself with a grim smile, and a half-natural 
sigh, and a sentiment of mixed wonder, pity, 
and growing affection, — 

“ What a nice little body she is! If she 
only could be a lady, too ! — but that’s impos¬ 
es 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


sible! Phoebe is no Pyncheon. She takes 
everything from her mother.” 

As to Phoebe’s not being a lady, or whether 
she were a lady or no, it was a point, perhaps, 
difficult to decide, but which could hardly have 
come up for judgment at all in any fair and 
healthy mind. Out of New England, it would 
be impossible to meet with a person combin¬ 
ing so many ladylike attributes with so many 
others that form no necessary (if compatible) 
part of the character. She shocked no canon 
of taste; she was admirably in keeping with 
herself, and never jarred against surrounding 
circumstances. Her figure, to be sure, — so 
small as to be almost childlike, and so elastic 
that motion seemed as easy or easier to it than 
rest,—would hardly have suited one’s idea of 
a countess. Neither did her face — with the 
brown ringlets on either side, and the slightly 
piquant nose, and the wholesome bloom, and 
the clear shade of tan, and the half a dozen 
freckles, friendly remembrancers of the April 
sun and breeze — precisely give us a right to 
call her beautiful. But there was both lustre 
and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty ; 
as graceful as a bird, and graceful much in the 
same way ; as pleasant about the house as a 
gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through 
a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of 
firelight that dances on the wall while evening 
114 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


is drawing nigh. Instead of discussing her 
claim to rank among ladies, it would be pre¬ 
ferable to regard Phoebe as the example of 
feminine grace and availability combined, in a 
state of society, if there were any such, where 
ladies did not exist. There it should be wo¬ 
man's office to move in the midst of practical 
affairs, and to gild them all, the very homeliest, 
— were it even the scouring of pots and ket¬ 
tles, — with an atmosphere of loveliness and 
joy. 

Such was the sphere of Phoebe. To find the 
born and educated lady, on the other hand, 
we need look no farther than Hepzibah, our 
forlorn old maid, in her rustling and rusty 
silks, with her deeply cherished and ridiculous 
consciousness of long descent, her shadowy 
claims to princely territory, and, in the way of 
accomplishment, her recollections, it may be, of 
having formerly thrummed on a harpsichord, 
and walked a minuet, and worked an antique 
tapestry-stitch on her sampler. It was a fair 
parallel between new Plebeianism and old Gen¬ 
tility. 

It really seemed as if the battered visage of 
the House of the Seven Gables, black and 
heavy-browed as it still certainly looked, must 
have shown a kind of cheerfulness glimmering 
through its dusky windows as Phoebe passed to 
and fro in the interior. Otherwise, it is impos- 
ii5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


sible to explain how the people of the neighbor¬ 
hood so soon became aware of the girl’s pre¬ 
sence. There was a great run of custom, setting 
steadily in, from about ten o’clock until towards 
noon, — relaxing, somewhat, at dinner-time, but 
recommencing in the afternoon, and, finally, 
dying away a half an hour or so before the long 
day’s sunset. One of the stanchest patrons was 
little Ned Higgins, the devourer of Jim Crow 
and the elephant, who to-day had signalized his 
omnivorous prowess by swallowing two drome¬ 
daries and a locomotive. Phoebe laughed, as she 
summed up her aggregate of sales upon the 
slate ; while Hepzibah, first drawing on a pair 
of silk gloves, reckoned over the sordid accu¬ 
mulation of copper coin, not without silver 
intermixed, that had jingled into the till. 

“ We must renew our stock, Cousin Hep¬ 
zibah ! ” cried the little saleswoman. “ The 
gingerbread figures are all gone, and so are 
those Dutch wooden milkmaids, and most of 
our other playthings. There has been constant 
inquiry for cheap raisins, and a great cry for 
whistles, and trumpets, and jew’s-harps ; and at 
least a dozen little boys have asked for molas¬ 
ses candy. And we must contrive to get a 
peck of russet apples, late in the season as it is. 
But, dear cousin, what an enormous heap of 
copper ! Positively a copper mountain ! ” 

“Well done! well done ! well done!” quoth 
116 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


Uncle Venner, who had taken occasion to 
shuffle in and out of the shop several times in 
the course of the day. “ Here’s a girl that will 
never end her days at my farm! Bless my eyes, 
what a brisk little soul! ” 

“ Yes, Phoebe is a nice girl! ” said Hepzibah, 
with a scowl of austere approbation. “ But, 
Uncle Venner, you have known the family a 
great many years. Can you tell me whether 
there ever was a Pyncheon whom she takes 
after ? ” 

“ I don’t believe there ever was,” answered 
the venerable man. “ At any rate, it never was 
my luck to see her like among them, nor, for 
that matter, anywhere else. I’ve seen a great 
deal of the world, not only in people’s kitchens 
and back yards, but at the street corners, and 
on the wharves, and in other places where my 
business calls me ; and I’m free to say. Miss 
Hepzibah, that I never knew a human creature 
do her work so much like one of God’s angels 
as this child Phoebe does ! ” 

Uncle Venner’s eulogium, if it appear rather 
too high-strained for the person and occasion, 
had, nevertheless, a sense in which it was both 
subtile and true. There was a spiritual quality 
in Phoebe’s activity. The life of the long and 
busy day — spent in occupations that might so 
easily have taken a squalid and ugly aspect — 
had been made pleasant, and even lovely, by 
ii 7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the spontaneous grace with which these homely 
duties seemed to bloom out of her character; 
so that labor, while she dealt with it, had the 
easy and flexible charm of play. Angels do not 
toil, but let their good works grow out of 
them ; and so did Phoebe. 

The two relatives — the young maid and the 
old one—found time before nightfall, in the 
intervals of trade, to make rapid advances to¬ 
wards affection and confidence. A recluse, like 
Hepzibah, usually displays remarkable frank¬ 
ness, and at least temporary affability, on being 
absolutely cornered, and brought to the point 
of personal intercourse ; like the angel whom 
Jacob wrestled with, she is ready to bless you 
when once overcome. 

The old gentlewoman took a dreary and 
proud satisfaction in leading Phoebe from room 
to room of the house, and recounting the tra¬ 
ditions with which, as we may say, the walls 
were lugubriously frescoed. She showed the 
indentations made by the lieutenant-governor's 
sword-hilt in the door-panels of the apartment 
where old Colonel Pyncheon, a dead host, had 
received his affrighted visitors with an awful 
frown. The dusky terror of that frown, Hep¬ 
zibah observed, was thought to be lingering 
ever since in the passageway. She bade Phoebe 
step into one of the tall chairs, and inspect the 
ancient map of the Pyncheon territory at the 
118 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


eastward. In a tract of land on which she laid 
her finger, there existed a silver mine, the local¬ 
ity of which was precisely pointed out in some 
memoranda of Colonel Pyncheon himself, but 
only to be made known when the family claim 
should be recognized by government. Thus 
it was for the interest of all New England that 
the Pyncheons should have justice done them. 
She told, too, how that there was undoubtedly 
an immense treasure of English guineas hidden 
somewhere about the house, or in the cellar, or 
possibly in the garden. 

“ If you should happen to find it, Phoebe,” 
said Hepzibah, glancing aside at her with a 
grim yet kindly smile, “ we will tie up the shop- 
bell for good and all! ” 

“Yes, dear cousin,” answered Phoebe; “but, 
in the mean time, I hear somebody ringing it! ” 
When the customer was gone, Hepzibah 
talked rather vaguely, and at great length, about 
a certain Alice Pyncheon, who had been exceed¬ 
ingly beautiful and accomplished in her lifetime, 
a hundred years ago. The fragrance of her 
rich and delightful character still lingered about 
the place where she had lived, as a dried rose¬ 
bud scents the drawer where it has withered 
and perished. This lovely Alice had met with 
some great and mysterious calamity, and had 
grown thin and white, and gradually faded out 
of the world. But, even now, she was sup- 
11 9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


posed to haunt the House of the Seven Gables, 
and, a great many times, — especially when one 
of the Pyncheons was to die, — she had been 
heard playing sadly and beautifully on the harp¬ 
sichord. One of these tunes, just as it had 
sounded from her spiritual touch, had been 
written down by an amateur of music; it was 
so exquisitely mournful that nobody, to this 
day, could bear to hear it played, unless when 
a great sorrow had made them know the still 
profounder sweetness of it. 

“ Was it the same harpsichord that you 
showed me ? ” inquired Phoebe. 

“ The very same,” said Hepzibah. “ It was 
Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord. When I was 
learning music, my father would never let me 
open it. So, as I could only play on my 
teacher's instrument, I have forgotten all my 
music long ago." 

Leaving these antique themes, the old lady 
began to talk about the daguerreotypist, whom, 
as he seemed to be a well-meaning and orderly 
young man, and in narrow circumstances, she 
had permitted to take up his residence in one 
of the seven gables. But, on seeing more of 
Mr. Holgrave, she hardly knew what to make 
of him. He had the strangest companions 
imaginable; men with long beards, and dressed 
in linen blouses, and other such new-fangled 
and ill-fitting garments ; reformers, temperance 
120 


MAY AND NOVEMBER 


lecturers, and all manner of cross-looking phi¬ 
lanthropists; community-men, and come-outers, 
as Hepzibah believed, who acknowledged no 
law, and ate no solid food, but lived on the 
scent of other people’s cookery, and turned up 
their noses at the fare. As for the daguerreo- 
typist, she had read a paragraph in a penny 
paper, the other day, accusing him of making a 
speech full of wild and disorganizing matter, at 
a meeting of his banditti-like associates. For 
her own part, she had reason to believe that he 
practised animal magnetism, and, if such things 
were in fashion nowadays, should be apt to sus¬ 
pect him of studying the Black Art up there 
in his lonesome chamber. 

“ But, dear cousin,” said Phoebe, cc if the 
young man is so dangerous, why do you let 
him stay ? If he does nothing worse, he may 
set the house on fire ! ” 

“ Why, sometimes,” answered Hepzibah, 
“ I have seriously made it a question, whether 
I ought not to send him away. But, with all 
his oddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and 
has such a way of taking hold of one’s mind, 
that, without exactly liking him (for I don’t 
know enough of the young man), I should be 
sorry to lose sight of him entirely. A woman 
clings to slight acquaintances when she lives so 
much alone as I do.” 

“ But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person ! ” 
121 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


remonstrated Phoebe, a part of whose essence 
it was to keep within the limits of law. 

“ Oh ! ” said Hepzibah carelessly, — for, for¬ 
mal as she was, still, in her life’s experience, she 
had gnashed her teeth against human law, — 
“ I suppose he has a law of his own! ” 

122 


I 


VI 


MAULE S WELL 


TER an early tea, the little country 



girl strayed into the garden. The 


enclosure had formerly been very ex¬ 


tensive, but was now contracted within small 
compass, and hemmed about, partly by high 
wooden fences, and partly by the outbuildings 
of houses that stood on another street. In its 
centre was a grass-plat, surrounding a ruinous 
little structure, which showed just enough of 
its original design to indicate that it had once 
been a summer-house. A hop-vine, springing 
from last year’s root, was beginning to clamber 
over it, but would be long in covering the roof 
with its green mantle. Three of the seven ga¬ 
bles either fronted or looked sideways, with a 
dark solemnity of aspect, down into the garden. 

The black, rich soil had fed itself with the 
decay of a long period of time ; such as fallen 
leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and 
seed-vessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more 
useful after their death than ever while flaunt¬ 
ing in the sun. The evil of these departed 
years would naturally have sprung up again, in 


123 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

such rank weeds (symbolic of the transmitted 
vices of society) as are always prone to root 
themselves about human dwellings. Phoebe 
saw, however, that their growth must have been 
checked by a degree of careful labor, bestowed 
daily and systematically on the garden. The 
white double rosebush had evidently been 
propped up anew against the house since the 
commencement of the season; and a pear-tree 
and three damson-trees, which, except a row of 
currant-bushes, constituted the only varieties 
of fruit, bore marks of the recent amputation of 
several superfluous or defective limbs. There 
were also a few species of antique and heredi¬ 
tary flowers, in no very flourishing condition, 
but scrupulously weeded; as if some person, 
either out of love or curiosity, had been anx¬ 
ious to bring them to such perfection as they 
were capable of attaining. The remainder of 
the garden presented a well-selected assortment 
of esculent vegetables, in a praiseworthy state 
of advancement. Summer squashes almost in 
their golden blossom ; cucumbers, now evin¬ 
cing a tendency to spread away from the main 
stock, and ramble far and wide ; two or three 
rows of string-beans and as many more that 
were about to festoon themselves on poles; 
tomatoes, occupying a site so sheltered and 
sunny that the plants were already gigantic, and 
promised an early and abundant harvest. 

124 


MAULE’S WELL 


Phoebe wondered whose care and toil it could 
have been that had planted these vegetables, 
and kept the soil so clean and orderly. Not 
surely her cousin Hepzibah’s, who had no taste 
nor spirits for the ladylike employment of cul¬ 
tivating flowers, and — with her recluse habits, 
and tendency to shelter herself within the dis¬ 
mal shadow of the house — would hardly have 
come forth under the speck of open sky to 
weed and hoe among the fraternity of beans 
and squashes. 

It being her first day of complete estrange¬ 
ment from rural objects, Phoebe found an unex¬ 
pected charm in this little nook of grass, and 
foliage, and aristocratic flowers, and plebeian 
vegetables. The eye of Heaven seemed to 
look down into it pleasantly, and with a pe¬ 
culiar smile, as if glad to perceive that nature, 
elsewhere overwhelmed, and driven out of the 
dusty town, had here been able to retain a 
breathing-place. The spot acquired a some¬ 
what wilder grace, and yet a very gentle one, 
from the fact that a pair of robins had built 
their nest in the pear-tree, and were making 
themselves exceedingly busy and happy in 
the dark intricacy of its boughs. Bees, too, — 
strange to say, — had thought it worth their 
while to come hither, possibly from the range 
of hives beside some farmhouse miles away. 
How many aerial voyages might they have made, 
125 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


in quest of honey, or honey-laden, betwixt 
dawn and sunset! Yet, late as it now was, 
there still arose a pleasant hum out of one or 
two of the squash blossoms, in the depths of 
which these bees were plying their golden labor. 
There was one other object in the garden which 
Nature might fairly claim as her inalienable 
property, in spite of whatever man could do to 
render it his own. This was a fountain, set 
round with a rim of old mossy stones, and 
paved, in its bed, with what appeared to be a 
sort of mosaic-work of variously colored peb¬ 
bles. The play and slight agitation of the 
water, in its upward gush, wrought magically 
with these variegated pebbles, and made a con¬ 
tinually shifting apparition of quaint figures, 
vanishing too suddenly to be definable. Thence, 
swelling over the rim of moss-grown stones, the 
water stole away under the fence, through what 
we regret to call a gutter,,rather than a channel. 

Nor must we forget to mention a hencoop of 
very reverend antiquity that stood in the far¬ 
ther corner of the garden, not a great way from 
the fountain. It now contained only Chan¬ 
ticleer, his two wives, and a solitary chicken. 
All of them were pure specimens of a breed 
which had been transmitted down as an heir¬ 
loom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, 
while in their prime, to have attained almost 
the size of turkeys, and, on the score of delicate 
126 


MAULE’S WELL 


flesh, to be fit for a prince's table. In proof 
of the authenticity of this legendary renown, 
Hepzibah could have exhibited the shell of a 
great egg, which an ostrich need hardly have 
been ashamed of. Be that as it might, the hens 
were now scarcely larger than pigeons, and had 
a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty 
kind of movement, and a sleepy and melan¬ 
choly tone throughout all the variations of 
their clucking and cackling. It was evident 
that the race had degenerated, like many a no¬ 
ble race besides, in consequence of too strict a 
watchfulness to keep it pure. These feathered 
people had existed too long in their distinct 
variety; a fact of which the present representa¬ 
tives, judging by their lugubrious deportment, 
seemed to be aware. They kept themselves 
alive, unquestionably, and laid now and then 
an egg, and hatched a chicken ; not for any 
pleasure of their own, but that the world might 
not absolutely lose what had once been so ad¬ 
mirable a breed of fowls. The distinguishing 
mark of the hens was a crest of lamentably 
scanty growth, in these latter days, but so oddly 
and wickedly analogous to Hepzibah’s turban, 
that Phoebe — to the poignant distress of her 
conscience, but inevitably — was led to fancy 
a general resemblance betwixt these forlorn 
bipeds and her respectable relative. 

The girl ran into the house to get some 
127 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


crumbs of bread, cold potatoes, and other such 
scraps as were suitable to the accommodating 
appetite of fowls. Returning, she gave a pe¬ 
culiar call, which they seemed to recognize. 
The chicken crept through the pales of the 
coop and ran, with some show of liveliness, to 
her feet; while Chanticleer and the ladies of his 
household regarded her with queer, sidelong 
glances, and then croaked one to another, as if 
communicating their sage opinions of her char¬ 
acter. So wise, as well as antique, was their 
aspect, as to give color to the idea, not merely 
that they were the descendants of a time-hon¬ 
ored race, but that they had existed, in their in¬ 
dividual capacity, ever since the House of the 
Seven Gables was founded, and were somehow 
mixed up with its destiny. They were a species 
of tutelary sprite, or Banshee ; although winged 
and feathered differently from most other guar¬ 
dian angels. 

“ Here, you odd little chicken ! ” said Phoebe; 
“ here are some nice crumbs for you ! ” 

The chicken, hereupon, though almost as 
venerable in appearance as its mother, — pos¬ 
sessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its pro¬ 
genitors in miniature, — mustered vivacity 
enough to flutter upward and alight on Phoebe’s 
shoulder. 

“ That little fowl pays you a high compli¬ 
ment ! ” said a voice behind Phoebe. 

128 


You odd little chicken 3 



( 



4 
























MAULE’S WELL 


Turning quickly, she was surprised at sight 
of a young man, who had found access into the 
garden by a door opening out of another gable 
than that whence she had emerged. He held 
a hoe in his hand, and, while Phoebe was gone 
in quest of the crumbs, had begun to busy him¬ 
self with drawing up fresh earth about the roots 
of the tomatoes. 

“ The chicken really treats you like an old 
acquaintance/’ continued he in a quiet way, 
while a smile made his face pleasanter than 
Phoebe at first fancied it. “ Those venerable 
personages in the coop, too, seem very affably 
disposed. You are lucky to be in their good 
graces so soon ! They have known me much 
longer, but never honor me with any familiarity, 
though hardly a day passes without my bring¬ 
ing them food. Miss Hepzibah, I suppose, 
will interweave the fact with her other tradi¬ 
tions, and set it down that the fowls know you 
to be a Pyncheon ! ” 

“ The secret is,” said Phoebe, smiling, “ that 
I have learned how to talk with hens and 
chickens.” 

“ Ah, but these hens,” answered the young 
man,— <c these hens of aristocratic lineage would 
scorn to understand the vulgar language of a 
barnyard fowl. I prefer to think — and so 
would Miss Hepzibah — that they recognize 
the family tone. For you are a Pyncheon ? ” 
129 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ My name is Phoebe Pyncheon,” said the 
girl, with a manner of some reserve ; for she 
was aware that her new acquaintance could be 
no other than the daguerreotypist, of whose 
lawless propensities the old maid had given her 
a disagreeable idea. “ I did not know that my 
cousin Hepzibah’s garden was under another 
person’s care.” 

“Yes,” said Holgrave, c< I dig, and hoe, and 
weed, in this black old earth, for the sake of 
refreshing myself with what little nature and 
simplicity may be left in it, after men have so 
long sown and reaped here. I turn up the 
earth by way of pastime. My sober occupa¬ 
tion, so far as I have any, is with a lighter ma¬ 
terial. In short, I make pictures out of sun¬ 
shine ; and, not to be too much dazzled with my 
own trade, I have prevailed with Miss Hepzibah 
to let me lodge in one of these dusky gables. It 
is like a bandage over one’s eye,s, to come into 
it. But would you like to see a specimen of 
my productions ? ” 

“ A daguerreotype likeness, do you mean ? ” 
asked Phoebe with less reserve ; for, in spite 
of prejudice, her own youthfulness sprang for¬ 
ward to meet his. “ I don’t much like pictures 
of that sort, — they are so hard and stern ; be¬ 
sides dodging away from the eye, and trying to 
escape altogether. They are conscious of look- 

13 0 


MAULE’S WELL 


mg very unamiable, I suppose, and therefore 
hate to be seen.” 

“ If you would permit me,” said the artist, 
looking at Phoebe, “ I should like to try 
whether the daguerreotype can bring out disa¬ 
greeable traits on a perfectly amiable face. But 
there certainly is truth in what you have said. 
Most of my likenesses do look unamiable ; but 
the very sufficient reason, I fancy, is, because 
the originals are so. There is a wonderful in¬ 
sight in Heaven’s broad and simple sunshine. 
While we give it credit only for depicting the 
merest surface, it actually brings out the secret 
character with a truth that no painter would ever 
venture upon, even could he detect it. There 
is, at least, no flattery in my humble line of art. 
Now, here is a likeness which I have taken 
over and over again, and still with no better re¬ 
sult. Yet the original wears, to common eyes, 
a very different expression. It would gratify 
me to have your judgment on this character.” 

He exhibited a daguerreotype miniature in a 
morocco case. Phoebe merely glanced at it, 
and gave it back. 

“ I know the face,” she replied; “ for its 
stern eye has been following me about all day. 
It is my Puritan ancestor, who hangs yonder in 
the parlor. To be sure, you have found some 
way of copying the portrait without its black 
I 3 I 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


velvet cap and gray beard, and have given him 
a modern coat and satin cravat, instead of his 
cloak and band. I don't think him improved 
by your alterations.” 

“You would have seen other differences had 
you looked a little longer,” said Holgrave, 
laughing, yet apparently much struck. “ I can 
assure you that this is a modern face, and one 
which you will very probably meet. Now, the 
remarkable point is, that the original wears, to 
the world’s eye, — and, for aught I know, to 
his most intimate friends, — an exceedingly 
pleasant countenance, indicative of benevolence, 
openness of heart, sunny good-humor, and 
other praiseworthy qualities of that cast. The 
sun, as you see, tells quite another story, and 
will not be coaxed out of it, after half a dozen 
patient attempts on my part. Here we have 
the man, sly, subtle, hard, imperious, and, 
withal, cold as ice. Look at that eye ! Would 
you like to be at its mercy ? At that mouth ! 
Could it ever smile ? And yet, if you could 
only see the benign smile of the original! It 
is so much the more unfortunate, as he is a 
public character of some eminence, and the like¬ 
ness was intended to be engraved.” 

“Well, I don’t wish to see it any more,” 
observed Phoebe, turning away her eyes. “It 
is certainly very like the old portrait. But my 
cousin Hepzibah has another picture, — a min- 
132 


MAULE’S WELL 


iature. If the original is still in the world, I 
think he might defy the sun to make him look 
stern and hard.” 

“ You have seen that picture, then ! ” ex¬ 
claimed the artist, with an expression of much 
interest. “ I never did, but have a great curi¬ 
osity to do so. And you judge favorably of 
the face ? ” 

££ There never was a sweeter one,” said 
Phoebe. cc It is almost too soft and gentle for 
a man’s.” 

££ Is there nothing wild in the eye ? ” contin¬ 
ued Holgrave, so earnestly that it embarrassed 
Phoebe, as did also the quiet freedom with which 
he presumed on their so recent acquaintance. 
“Is there nothing dark or sinister anywhere ? 
Could you not conceive the original to have 
been guilty of a great crime ? ” 

“ It is nonsense,” said Phoebe a little impa¬ 
tiently, “ for us to talk about a picture which 
you have never seen. You mistake it for some 
other. A crime, indeed ! Since you are a friend 
of my cousin Hepzibah’s, you should ask her 
to show you the picture.” 

“It will suit my purpose still better to see 
the original,” replied the daguerreotypist coolly. 
“ As to his character, we need not discuss its 
points; they have already been settled by a 
competent tribunal, or one which called itself 
competent. But, stay! Do not go yet, if 
I 33 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


you please ! I have a proposition to make 
you.” 

Phoebe was on the point of retreating, but 
turned back, with some hesitation ; for she did 
not exactly comprehend his manner, although, 
on better observation, its feature seemed rather 
to be lack of ceremony than any approach to 
offensive rudeness. There was an odd kind of 
authority, too, in what he now proceeded to 
say, rather as if the garden were his own than 
a place to which he was admitted merely by 
Hepzibah’s courtesy. 

cc If agreeable to you,” he observed, “ it 
would give me pleasure to turn over these flow¬ 
ers, and those ancient and respectable fowls, to 
your care. Coming fresh from country air and 
occupations, you will soon feel the need of some 
such out-of-door employment. My own sphere 
does not so much lie among flowers. You can 
trim and tend them, therefore, as you please; 
and I will ask only the least trifle of a blossom, 
now and then, in exchange for all the good, 
honest kitchen vegetables with which I pro¬ 
pose to enrich Miss Hepzibah’s table. So we 
will be fellow laborers, somewhat on the com¬ 
munity system.” 

Silently, and rather surprised at her own 
compliance, Phoebe accordingly betook herself 
to weeding a flower bed, but busied herself still 
more with cogitations respecting this young 
*34 


MAULED WELL 


man, with whom she so unexpectedly found 
herself on terms approaching to familiarity. She 
did not altogether like him. His character per¬ 
plexed the little country girl, as it might a more 
practised observer; for, while the tone of his 
conversation had generally been playful, the 
impression left on her mind was that of grav¬ 
ity, and, except as his youth modified it, almost 
sternness. She rebelled, as it were, against a 
certain magnetic element in the artist’s nature, 
which he exercised towards her, possibly with¬ 
out being conscious of it. 

After a little while, the twilight, deepened 
by the shadows of the fruit-trees and the sur¬ 
rounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the 
garden. 

<c There,” said Holgrave, cc it is time to give 
over work ! That last stroke of the hoe has 
cut off a beanstalk. Good-night, Miss Phoebe 
Pyncheon ! Any bright day, if you will put 
one of those rosebuds in your hair, and come 
to my rooms in Central Street, I will seize the 
purest ray of sunshine, and make a picture of 
the flower and its wearer.” 

He retired towards his own solitary gable, 
but turned his head, on reaching the door, and 
called to Phoebe, with a tone which certainly 
had laughter in it, yet which seemed to be more 
than half in earnest. 

“ Be careful not to drink at Maule’s well! ” 
*35 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


said he. c< Neither drink nor bathe your face 
in it! ” 

“ Maule’s well ! ” answered Phoebe. “ Is 
that it with the rim of mossy stones ? I have 
no thought of drinking there, — but why 
not? ” 

“ Oh,” rejoined the daguerreotypist, “ be¬ 
cause, like an old lady’s cup of tea, it is water 
bewitched ! ” 

He vanished ; and Phoebe, lingering a mo¬ 
ment, saw a glimmering light, and then the 
steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the 
gable. On returning into Hepzibah’s apart¬ 
ment of the house, she found the low-studded 
parlor so dim and dusky that her eyes could 
not penetrate the interior. She was indistinctly 
aware, however, that the gaunt figure of the old 
gentlewoman was sitting in one of the straight- 
backed chairs, a little withdrawn from the win¬ 
dow, the faint gleam of which showed the 
blanched paleness of her cheek, turned side¬ 
ways towards a corner. 

“ Shall I light a lamp. Cousin Hepzibah ? ” 
she asked. 

“ Do, if you please, my dear child,” an¬ 
swered Hepzibah. “ But put it on the table 
in the corner of the passage. My eyes are 
weak; and I can seldom bear the lamplight on 
them.” 

What an instrument is the human voice ! 

136 


MAULE’S WELL 


How wonderfully responsive to every emotion 
of the human soul! In Hepzibah’s tone, at 
that moment, there was a certain rich depth and 
moisture, as if the words, commonplace as they 
were, had been steeped in the warmth of her 
heart. Again, while lighting the lamp in the 
kitchen, Phoebe fancied that her cousin spoke 
to her. 

“ In a moment, cousin ! ” answered the girl. 
“ These matches just glimmer, and go out.” 

But, instead of a response from Hepzibah, 
she seemed to hear the murmur of an unknown 
voice. It was strangely indistinct, however, 
and less like articulate words than an unshaped 
sound, such as would be the utterance of feel¬ 
ing and sympathy, rather than of the intellect. 
So vague was it, that its impression or echo in 
Phoebe's mind was that of unreality. She con¬ 
cluded that she must have mistaken some other 
sound for that of the human voice; or else that 
it was altogether in her fancy. 

She set the lighted lamp in the passage, and 
again entered the parlor. Hepzibah’s form, 
though its sable outline mingled with the dusk, 
was now less imperfectly visible. In the re¬ 
moter parts of the room, however, its walls 
being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was 
nearly the same obscurity as before. 

“ Cousin," said Phoebe, “ did you speak to 
me just now ? ” 


*37 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ No, child ! ” replied Hepzibah. 

Fewer words than before, but with the same 
mysterious music in them ! Mellow, melan¬ 
choly, yet not mournful, the tone seemed to 
gush up out of the deep well of Hepzibah’s 
heart, all steeped in its profoundest emotion. 
There was a tremor in it, too, that—as all 
strong feeling is electric — partly communi¬ 
cated itself to Phoebe. The girl sat silently for 
a moment. But soon, her senses being very 
acute, she became conscious of an irregular 
respiration in an obscure corner of the room. 
Her physical organization, moreover, being at 
once delicate and healthy, gave her a percep¬ 
tion, operating with almost the effect of a spir¬ 
itual medium, that somebody was near at hand. 

“ My dear cousin,” asked she, overcoming an 
indefinable reluctance, “ is there not some one 
in the room with us ? ” 

<c Phoebe, my dear little girl,” said Hepzi¬ 
bah, after a moment’s pause, “ you were up 
betimes, and have been busy all day. Pray go 
to bed; for I am sure you must need rest. I 
will sit in the parlor awhile, and collect my 
thoughts. It has been my custom for more 
years, child, than you have lived ! ” 

While thus dismissing her, the maiden lady 
stept forward, kissed Phoebe, and pressed her to 
her heart, which beat against the girl’s bosom 
with a strong, high, and tumultuous swell. 

138 


MAULE’S WELL 


How came there to be so much love in this 
desolate old heart, that it could afford to well 
over thus abundantly ? 

“ Good-night, cousin,” said Phoebe, strangely 
affected by Hepzibah’s manner. “ If you 
begin to love me, I am glad ! ” 

She retired to her chamber, but did not soon 
fall asleep, nor then very profoundly. At 
some uncertain period in the depths of night, 
and, as it were, through the thin veil of a 
dream, she was conscious of a footstep mount¬ 
ing the stairs heavily, but not with force and 
decision. The voice of Hepzibah, with a hush 
through it, was going up along with the foot¬ 
steps ; and, again, responsive to her cousin’s 
voice, Phoebe heard that strange, vague mur¬ 
mur, which might be likened to an indistinct 
shadow of human utterance. 

139 


VII 


THE GUEST 

W HEN Phoebe awoke, — which she did 
with the early twittering of the con¬ 
jugal couple of robins in the pear- 
tree, — she heard movements below stairs, and, 
hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the 
kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a 
book in close contiguity to her nose, as if with 
the hope of gaining an olfactory acquaintance 
with its contents, since her imperfect vision 
made it not very easy to read them. If any vol¬ 
ume could have manifested its essential wisdom 
in the mode suggested, it would certainly have 
been the one now in Hepzibah’s hand ; and the 
kitchen, in such an event, would forthwith have 
steamed with the fragrance of venison, turkeys, 
capons, larded partridges, puddings, cakes, and 
Christmas pies, in all manner of elaborate mix¬ 
ture and concoction. It was a cookery book, full 
of innumerable old fashions of English dishes, 
and illustrated with engravings, which repre¬ 
sented the arrangements of the table at such 
banquets as it might have befitted a nobleman 
to give in the great hall of his castle. And, 
140 


THE GUEST 


amid these rich and potent devices of the culi¬ 
nary art (not one of which, probably, had been 
tested, within the memory of any man's grand¬ 
father), poor Hepzibah was seeking for some 
nimble little titbit, which, with what skill she 
had, and such materials as were at hand, she 
might toss up for breakfast. 

Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the 
savory volume, and inquired of Phoebe whether 
old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had 
laid an egg the preceding day. Phoebe ran to 
see, but returned without the expected treasure 
in her hand. At that instant, however, the blast 
of a fish-dealer's conch was heard, announcing 
his approach along the street. With energetic 
raps at the shop-window, Hepzibah summoned 
the man in, and made purchase of what he war¬ 
ranted as the finest mackerel in his cart, and as 
fat a one as ever he felt with his finger so early 
in the season. Requesting Phoebe to roast some 
coffee, — which she casually observed was the 
real Mocha, and so long kept that each of the 
small berries ought to be worth its weight in 
gold, — the maiden lady heaped fuel into the 
vast receptacle of the ancient fireplace in such 
quantity as soon to drive the lingering dusk out 
of the kitchen. The country girl, willing to 
give her utmost assistance, proposed to make 
an Indian cake, after her mother's peculiar 
method, of easy manufacture, and which she 
141 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


could vouch for as possessing a richness, and, 
if rightly prepared, a delicacy, unequalled by 
any other mode of breakfast-cake. Hepzibah 
gladly assenting, the kitchen was soon the scene 
of savory preparation. Perchance, amid their 
proper element of smoke, which eddied forth 
from the ill-constructed chimney, the ghosts of 
departed cook-maids looked wonderingly on, 
or peeped down the great breadth of the flue, 
despising the simplicity of the projected meal, 
yet ineffectually pining to thrust their shadowy 
hands into each inchoate dish. The half-starved 
rats, at any rate, stole visibly out of their hid¬ 
ing-places, and sat on their hind-legs, snuffing 
the fumy atmosphere, and wistfully awaiting an 
opportunity to nibble. 

Hepzibah had no natural turn for cookery, 
and, to say the truth, had fairly incurred her 
present meagreness by often choosing to go 
without her dinner rather than be attendant on 
the rotation of the spit, or ebullition of the pot. 
Her zeal over the fire, therefore, was quite an 
heroic test of sentiment. It was touching, and 
positively worthy of tears (if Phoebe, the only 
spectator, except the rats and ghosts aforesaid, 
had not been better employed than in shedding 
them), to see her rake out a bed of fresh and 
glowing coals, and proceed to broil the mack¬ 
erel. Her usually pale cheeks were all ablaze 
with heat and hurry. She watched the fish 
142 


THE GUEST 


with as much tender care and minuteness of 
attention as if, — we know not how to ex¬ 
press it otherwise,— as if her own heart were 
on the gridiron, and her immortal happiness 
were involved in its being done precisely to a 
turn! 

Life, within doors, has few pleasanter pro¬ 
spects than a neatly arranged and well-provi¬ 
sioned breakfast-table. We come to it freshly, 
in the dewy youth of the day, and when our 
spiritual and sensual elements are in better ac¬ 
cord than at a later period ; so that the mate¬ 
rial delights of the morning meal are capable 
of being fully enjoyed, without any very griev¬ 
ous reproaches, whether gastric or conscientious, 
for yielding even a trifle overmuch to the ani¬ 
mal department of our nature. The thoughts, 
too, that run around the ring of familiar guests 
have a piquancy and mirthfulness, and often¬ 
times a vivid truth, which more rarely find their 
way into the elaborate intercourse of dinner. 
Hepzibah’s small and ancient table, supported 
on its slender and graceful legs, and covered 
with a cloth of the richest damask, looked 
worthy to be the scene and centre of one of 
the cheerfullest of parties. The vapor of the 
broiled fish arose like incense from the shrine 
of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the 
Mocha might have gratified the nostrils of a 
tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope over 

*43 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


a modern breakfast-table. Phoebe's Indian 
cakes were the sweetest offering of all, — in 
their hue befitting the rustic altars of the inno¬ 
cent and golden age, — or, so brightly yellow 
were they, resembling some of the bread which 
was changed to glistening gold when Midas 
tried to eat it. The butter must not be forgot¬ 
ten,— butter which Phoebe herself had churned, 
in her own rural home, and brought it to her 
cousin as a propitiatory gift, — smelling of clo¬ 
ver blossoms, and diffusing the charm of pas¬ 
toral scenery through the dark-panelled parlor. 
All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old 
china cups and saucers, and the crested spoons, 
and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's only other 
article of plate, and shaped like the rudest por¬ 
ringer), set out a board at which the stateliest 
of old Colonel Pyncheon’s guests need not have 
scorned to take his place. But the Puritan's 
face scowled down out of the picture, as if no¬ 
thing on the table pleased his appetite. 

By way of contributing what grace she could, 
Phoebe gathered some roses and a few other 
flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and 
arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, hav¬ 
ing long ago lost its handle, was so much the 
fitter for a flower vase. The early sunshine — 
as fresh as that which peeped into Eve’s bower 
while she and Adam sat at breakfast there — 
came twinkling through the branches of the 
144 


THE GUEST 


pear-tree, and fell quite across the table. All 
was now ready. There were chairs and plates 
for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah,— 
the same for Phoebe, — but what other guest 
did her cousin look for ? 

Throughout this preparation there had been 
a constant tremor in Hepzibah’s frame; an 
agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the 
quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by 
the firelight on the kitchen wall, or by the sun¬ 
shine on the parlor floor. Its manifestations 
were so various, and agreed so little with one 
another, that the girl knew not what to make 
of it. Sometimes it seemed an ecstasy of de¬ 
light and happiness. At such moments, Hep¬ 
zibah would fling out her arms, and infold 
Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as tenderly 
as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so 
by an inevitable impulse, and as if her bosom 
were oppressed with tenderness, of which she 
must needs pour out a little, in order to gain 
breathing-room. The next moment, without 
any visible cause for the change, her unwonted 
joy shrank back, appalled, as it were, and 
clothed itself in mourning; or it ran and hid 
itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, 
where it had long lain chained, while a cold, 
spectral sorrow took the place of the impris¬ 
oned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised,— 
a sorrow as black as that was bright. She often 
145 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


broke into a little, nervous, hysteric laugh, 
more touching than any tears could be; and 
forthwith, as if to try which was the most 
touching, a gush of tears would follow; or per¬ 
haps the laughter and tears came both at once, 
and surrounded our poor Hepzibah, in a moral 
sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow. To¬ 
wards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affec¬ 
tionate, — far tenderer than ever before, in 
their brief acquaintance, except for that one 
kiss on the preceding night, — yet with a con¬ 
tinually recurring pettishness and irritability. 
She would speak sharply to her; then, throw¬ 
ing aside all the starched reserve of her ordi¬ 
nary manner, ask pardon, and the next instant 
renew the just-forgiven injury. 

At last, when their mutual labor was all fin¬ 
ished, she took Phoebe’s hand in her own 
trembling one. 

“ Bear with me, my dear child,” she cried; 
“ for truly my heart is full to the brim ! Bear 
with me ; for I love you, Phoebe, though I 
speak so roughly ! Think nothing of it, dear¬ 
est child ! By and by, I shall be kind, and 
only kind ! ” 

“ My dearest cousin, cannot you tell me 
what has happened ? ” asked Phoebe, with a 
sunny and tearful sympathy. “ What is it that 
moves you so ? ” 

“Hush! hush! He is coming!” whispered 
146 


THE GUEST 


Hepzibah, hastily wiping her eyes. “ Let him 
see you first, Phoebe; for you are young and 
rosy, and cannot help letting a smile break out 
whether or no. He always liked bright faces ! 
And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly 
dry on it. He never could abide tears. There; 
draw the curtain a little, so that the shadow 
may fall across his side of the table! But let 
there be a good deal of sunshine, too; for he 
never was fond of gloom, as some people are. 
He has had but little sunshine in his life,— 
poor Clifford, — and, oh, what a black shadow! 
Poor, poor Clifford ! ” 

Thus murmuring in an undertone, as if speak¬ 
ing rather to her own heart than to Phoebe, the 
old gentlewoman stepped on tiptoe about the 
room, making such arrangements as suggested 
themselves at the crisis. 

Meanwhile there was a step in the passage¬ 
way, above stairs. Phoebe recognized it as the 
same which had passed upward, as through her 
dream, in the night-time. The approaching 
guest, whoever it might be, appeared to pause 
at the head of the staircase; he paused twice 
or thrice in the descent; he paused again at the 
foot. Each time, the delay seemed to be with¬ 
out purpose, but rather from a forgetfulness of 
the purpose which had set him in motion, or 
as if the person’s feet came involuntarily to a 
standstill because the motive power was too 
I 47 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


feeble to sustain his progress. Finally, he 
made a long pause at the threshold of the par¬ 
lor. He took hold of the knob of the door; 
then loosened his grasp without opening it. 
Hepzibah, her hands convulsively clasped, 
stood gazing at the entrance. 

“ Dear Cousin Hepzibah, pray don't look 
so ! ” said Phoebe, trembling; for her cousin's 
emotion, and this mysteriously reluctant step, 
made her feel as if a ghost were coming into 
the room. “ You really frighten me! Is some¬ 
thing awful going to happen ? " 

“ Hush!" whispered Hepzibah. cc Be cheer¬ 
ful ! whatever may happen, be nothing but 
cheerful!" 

The final pause at the threshold proved so 
long, that Hepzibah, unable to endure the sus¬ 
pense, rushed forward, threw open the door, 
and led in the stranger by the hand. At the 
first glance, Phoebe saw an elderly personage, in 
an old-fashioned dressing-gown of faded dam¬ 
ask, and wearing his gray or almost white hair 
of an unusual length. It quite overshadowed 
his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and 
stared vaguely about the room. After a very 
brief inspection of his face, it was easy to con¬ 
ceive that his footstep must necessarily be such 
an one as that which, slowly and with as in¬ 
definite an aim as a child’s first journey across 
a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet 
148 


THE GUEST 


there were no tokens that his physical strength 
might not have sufficed for a free and deter¬ 
mined gait. It was the spirit of the man that 
could not walk. The expression of his coun¬ 
tenance— while, notwithstanding, it had the 
light of reason in it — seemed to waver, and 
glimmer, and nearly to die away, and feebly to 
recover itself again. It was like a flame which 
we see twinkling among half-extinguished em¬ 
bers ; we gaze at it more intently than if it 
were a positive blaze, gushing vividly upward, 
— more intently, but with a certain impatience, 
as if it ought either to kindle itself into satis¬ 
factory splendor, or be at once extinguished. 

For an instant after entering the room, the 
guest stood still, retaining Hepzibah’s hand 
instinctively, as a child does that of the grown 
person who guides it. He saw Phoebe, how¬ 
ever, and caught an illumination from her 
youthful and pleasant aspect, which, indeed, 
threw a cheerfulness about the parlor, like the 
circle of reflected brilliancy around the glass 
vase of flowers that was standing in the sun¬ 
shine. He made a salutation, or, to speak 
nearer the truth, an ill-defined, abortive at¬ 
tempt at curtsy. Imperfect as it was, how¬ 
ever, it conveyed an idea, or, at least, gave a 
hint, of indescribable grace, such as no prac¬ 
tised art of external manners could have at¬ 
tained. It was too slight to seize upon at the 
149 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


instant; yet, as recollected afterwards, seemed 
to transfigure the whole man. 

“ Dear Clifford,” said Hepzibah, in the tone 
with which one soothes a wayward infant, “ this 
is our cousin Phoebe, — little Phoebe Pyn- 
cheon, — Arthur’s only child, you know. She 
has come from the country to stay with us 
awhile; for our old house has grown to be 
very lonely now.” 

“ Phoebe — Phoebe Pyncheon ? — Phoebe ? ” 
repeated the guest, with a strange, sluggish, ill- 
defined utterance. “Arthur’s child! Ah, I for¬ 
get ! No matter ! She is very welcome ! ” 

“ Come, dear Clifford, take this chair,” said 
Hepzibah, leading him to his place. “ Pray, 
Phoebe, lower the curtain a very little more. 
Now let us begin breakfast.” 

The guest seated himself in the place assigned 
him, and looked strangely around. He was 
evidently trying to grapple with the present 
scene, and bring it home to his mind with a 
more satisfactory distinctness. He desired to 
be certain, at least, that he was here, in the low- 
studded, cross-beamed, oaken-panelled parlor, 
and not in some other spot, which had stereo¬ 
typed itselfinto his senses. But the effort was 
too great to be sustained with more than a frag¬ 
mentary success. Continually, as we may ex¬ 
press it, he faded away out of his place ; or, in 
other words, his mind and consciousness took 
150 


THE GUEST 


their departure, leaving his wasted, gray, and 
melancholy figure — a substantial emptiness, a 
material ghost — to occupy his seat at table. 
Again, after a blank moment, there would be a 
flickering taper-gleam in his eyeballs. It beto¬ 
kened that his spiritual part had returned, and 
was doing its best to kindle the heart’s house¬ 
hold fire, and light up intellectual lamps in the 
dark and ruinous mansion, where it was doomed 
to be a forlorn inhabitant. 

At one of these moments of less torpid, yet 
still imperfect animation, Phoebe became con¬ 
vinced of what she had at first rejected as too 
extravagant and startling an idea. She saw that 
the person before her must have been the ori¬ 
ginal of the beautiful miniature in her cousin 
Hepzibah’s possession. Indeed, with a femi¬ 
nine eye for costume, she had at once identified 
the damask dressing-gown, which enveloped 
him, as the same in figure, material, and fash¬ 
ion, with that so elaborately represented in the 
picture. This old, faded garment, with all 
its pristine brilliancy extinct, seemed, in some 
indescribable way, to translate the wearer’s un¬ 
told misfortune, and make it perceptible to the 
beholder’s eye. It was the better to be dis¬ 
cerned, by this exterior type, how worn and old 
were the soul’s more immediate garments ; that 
form and countenance, the beauty and grace of 
which had almost transcended the skill of the 

151 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


most exquisite of artists. It could the more 
adequately be known that the soul of the man 
must have suffered some miserable wrong, from 
its earthly experience. There he seemed to sit, 
with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him 
and the world, but through which, at flitting 
intervals, might be caught the same expression, 
so refined, so softly imaginative, which Mal- 
bone — venturing a happy touch, with sus¬ 
pended breath — had imparted to the miniature! 
There had been something so innately charac¬ 
teristic in this look, that all the dusky years, and 
the burden of unfit calamity which had fallen 
upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy it. 

Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of 
deliciously fragrant coffee, and presented it to 
her guest. As his eyes met hers, he seemed 
bewildered and disquieted. 

“ Is this you, Hepzibah ? ” he murmured 
sadly ; then, more apart, and perhaps uncon¬ 
scious that he was overheard, “ How changed ! 
how changed ! And is she angry with me ? 
Why does she bend her brow so ? ” 

Poor Hepzibah ! It was that wretched scowl 
which time and her near-sightedness, and the 
fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so ha¬ 
bitual that any vehemence of mood invariably 
evoked it. But at the indistinct murmur of 
his words her whole face grew tender, and even 
lovely, with sorrowful affection ; the harshness 
152 


THE GUEST 


of her features disappeared, as it were, behind 
the warm and misty glow. 

“ Angry ! ” she repeated ; “ angry with you, 
Clifford! ” 

Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had 
a plaintive and really exquisite melody thrilling 
through it, yet without subduing a certain some¬ 
thing which an obtuse auditor might still have 
mistaken for asperity. It was as if some tran¬ 
scendent musician should draw a soul-thrilling 
sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which 
makes its physical imperfection heard in the 
midst of ethereal harmony, — so deep was the 
sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah’s 
voice ! 

“ There is nothing but love, here, Clifford,” 
she added, — “ nothing but love ! You are at 
home ! ” 

The guest responded to her tone by a smile, 
which did not half light up his face. Feeble as 
it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had 
a charm of wonderful beauty. It was followed 
by a coarser expression; or one that had the 
effect of coarseness on the fine mould and out¬ 
line of his countenance, because there was no¬ 
thing intellectual to temper it. It was a look 
of appetite. He ate food with what might 
almost be termed voracity ; and seemed to for¬ 
get himself, Hepzibah, the young girl, and 
everything else around him, in the sensual 
*53 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


enjoyment which the bountifully spread table 
afforded. In his natural system, though high- 
wrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to 
the delights of the palate was probably inherent. 
It would have been kept in check, however, and 
even converted into an accomplishment, and one 
of the thousand modes of intellectual culture, 
had his more ethereal characteristics retained 
their vigor. But as it existed now, the effect 
was painful and made Phoebe droop her eyes. 

In a little while the guest became sensible of 
the fragrance of the yet untasted coffee. He 
quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on 
him like a charmed draught, and caused the 
opaque substance of his animal being to grow 
transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a 
spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with 
a clearer lustre than hitherto. 

“ More, more ! ” he cried, with nervous haste 
in his utterance, as if anxious to retain his grasp 
of what sought to escape him. <c This is what 
I need ! Give me more ! ” 

Under this delicate and powerful influence 
he sat more erect, and looked out from his eyes 
with a glance that took note of what it rested 
on. It was not so much that his expression 
grew more intellectual; this, though it had its 
share, was not the most peculiar effect. Neither 
was what we call the moral nature so forcibly 
awakened as to present itself in remarkable pro- 
154 


THE GUEST 


minence. But a certain fine temper of being was 
now not brought out in full relief, but change- 
ably and imperfectly betrayed, of which it was 
the function to deal with all beautiful and enjoy¬ 
able things. In a character where it should 
exist as the chief attribute, it would bestow on 
its possessor an exquisite taste, and an enviable 
susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be 
his life ; his aspirations would all tend toward 
it; and, allowing his frame and physical organs 
to be in consonance, his own developments 
would likewise be beautiful. Such a man should 
have nothing to do with sorrow; nothing with 
strife; nothing with the martyrdom which, in 
an infinite variety of shapes, awaits those who 
have the heart, and will, and conscience, to fight 
a battle with the world. To these heroic tem¬ 
pers, such martyrdom is the richest meed in the 
world's gift. To the individual before us, it 
could only be a grief, intense in due proportion 
with the severity of the infliction. He had no 
right to be a martyr ; and, beholding him so fit 
to be happy and so feeble for all other purposes, 
a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, me- 
thinks, have been ready to sacrifice what little 
enjoyment it might have planned for itself, — 
it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry 
in its regard, — if thereby the wintry blasts of 
our rude sphere might come tempered to such 
a man. 


155 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it 
seemed Clifford’s nature to be a Sybarite. It 
was perceptible, even there, in the dark old 
parlor, in the inevitable polarity with which his 
eyes were attracted towards the quivering play 
of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It 
was seen in his appreciating notice of the vase 
of flowers, the scent of which he inhaled with a 
zest almost peculiar to a physical organization 
so refined that spiritual ingredients are moulded 
in with it. It was betrayed in the unconscious 
smile with which he regarded Phoebe, whose 
fresh and maidenly figure was both sunshine 
and flowers, — their essence, in a prettier and 
more agreeable mode of manifestation. Not 
less evident was this love and necessity for the 
Beautiful, in the instinctive caution with which, 
even so soon, his eyes turned away from his 
hostess, and wandered to any quarter rather 
than come back. It was Hepzibah’s misfor¬ 
tune,— not Clifford’s fault. How could he, 
— so yellow as she was, so wrinkled, so sad of 
mien, with that odd uncouthness of a turban 
on her head, and that most perverse of scowls 
contorting her brow, — how could he love to 
gaze at her ? But, did he owe her no affection 
for so much as she had silently given ? He 
owed her nothing. A nature like Clifford’s can 
contract no debts of that kind. It is —we say 
it without censure, nor in diminution of the 
156 


THE GUEST 


claim which it indefeasibly possesses on beings 
of another mould — it is always selfish in its 
essence; and we must give it leave to be so, 
and heap up our heroic and disinterested love 
upon it so much the more, without a recom¬ 
pense. Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, 
at least, acted on the instinct of it. So long 
estranged from what was lovely as Clifford had 
been, she rejoiced — rejoiced, though with a 
present sigh, and a secret purpose to shed tears 
in her own chamber — that he had brighter 
objects now before his eyes than her aged and 
uncomely features. They never possessed a 
charm ; and if they had, the canker of her grief 
for him would long since have destroyed it. 

The guest leaned back in his chair. Min¬ 
gled in his countenance with a dreamy delight, 
there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. 
He was seeking to make himself more fully 
sensible of the scene around him ; or, perhaps, 
dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagina¬ 
tion, was vexing the fair moment with a strug¬ 
gle for some added brilliancy and more durable 
illusion. 

“ How pleasant! — How delightful ! ” he 
murmured, but not as if addressing any one. 
“ Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere 
through that open window ! An open window ! 
How beautiful that play of sunshine ! Those 
flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl’s 
157 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


face, how cheerful, how blooming ! — a flower 
with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew- 
drops ! Ah ! this must be all a dream ! A 
dream ! A dream ! But it has quite hidden 
the four stone walls ! ” 

Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of 
a cavern or a dungeon had come over it; there 
was no more light in its expression than might 
have come through the iron grates of a prison 
window, — still lessening, too, as if he were 
sinking farther into the depths. Phoebe (being 
of that quickness and activity of temperament 
that she seldom long refrained from taking a 
part, and generally a good one, in what was go¬ 
ing forward) now felt herself moved to address 
the stranger. 

cc Here is a new kind of rose, which I found 
this morning in the garden,” said she, choosing 
a small crimson one from among the flowers in 
the vase. c< There will be but five or six on 
the bush this season. This is the most perfect 
of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in 
it. And how sweet it is ! — sweet like no other 
rose ! One can never forget that scent! ” 

“ Ah ! — let me see ! — let me hold it! ” 
cried the guest, eagerly seizing the flower, 
which, by the spell peculiar to remembered 
odors, brought innumerable associations along 
with the fragrance that it exhaled. “ Thank 
you ! This has done me good. I remember 
158 


THE GUEST 


how I used to prize this flower, — long ago, I 
suppose, very long ago ! — or was it only yes¬ 
terday ? It makes me feel young again ! Am 
I young ? Either this remembrance is singu¬ 
larly distinct, or this consciousness strangely 
dim ! But how kind of the fair young girl! 
Thank you ! Thank you ! ” 

The favorable excitement derived from this 
little crimson rose afforded Clifford the bright¬ 
est moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast- 
table. It might have lasted longer, but that 
his eyes happened, soon afterwards, to rest on 
the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his 
dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking 
down on the scene like a ghost, and a most ill- 
tempered and ungenial one. The guest made 
an impatient gesture of the hand, and addressed 
Hepzibah with what might easily be recognized 
as the licensed irritability of a petted member 
of the family. 

“ Hepzibah ! — Hepzibah ! ” cried he with 
no little force and distinctness, “ why do you 
keep that odious picture on the wall ? Yes, 
yes ! — that is precisely your taste ! I have 
told you, a thousand times, that it was the evil 
genius of the house ! — my evil genius particu¬ 
larly ! Take it down, at once ! ” 

“ Dear Clifford,” said Hepzibah sadly, “you 
know it cannot be ! ” 

“ Then, at all events,” continued he, still 
159 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


speaking with some energy, “ pray cover it with 
a crimson curtain, broad enough to hang in 
folds, and with a golden border and tassels. I 
cannot bear it! It must not stare me in the 
face ! ” 

“Yes, dear Clifford, the picture shall be 
covered,” said Hepzibah soothingly. “ There 
is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs, — 
a little faded and moth-eaten, I’m afraid, — 
but Phoebe and I will do wonders with it.” 

“ This very day, remember ! ” said he ; and 
then added, in a low, self-communing voice, 
“ Why should we live in this dismal house 
at all ? Why not go to the South of France ? 
— to Italy ?— Paris, Naples, Venice, Rome? 
Hepzibah will say we have not the means. A 
droll idea that! ” 

He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of 
fine sarcastic meaning towards Hepzibah. 

But the several moods of feeling, faintly as 
they were marked, through which he had passed, 
occurring in so brief an interval of time, had 
evidently wearied the stranger. He was prob¬ 
ably accustomed to a sad monotony of life, not 
so much flowing in a stream, however sluggish, 
as stagnating in a pool around his feet. A 
slumberous veil diffused itself over his counte¬ 
nance, and had an effect, morally speaking, on 
its naturally delicate and elegant outline, like 
that which a brooding mist, with no sunshine 
160 


THE GUEST 


in it, throws over the features of a landscape. 
He appeared to become grosser, — almost clod¬ 
dish. If aught of interest or beauty — even 
ruined beauty — had heretofore been visible in 
this man, the beholder might now begin to 
doubt it, and to accuse his own imagination of 
deluding him with whatever grace had flickered 
over that visage, and whatever exquisite lustre 
had gleamed in those filmy eyes. 

Before he had quite sunken away, however, 
the sharp and peevish tinkle of the shop-bell 
made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably 
on Clifford’s auditory organs and the character¬ 
istic sensibility of his nerves, it caused him to 
start upright out of his chair. 

“ Good heavens, Hepzibah ! what horrible 
disturbance have we now in the house ? ” cried 
he, wreaking his resentful impatience — as a 
matter of course, and a custom of old — on the 
one person in the world that loved him. “ I 
have never heard such a hateful clamor ! Why 
do you permit it? In the name of all disso¬ 
nance, what can it be ? ” 

It was very remarkable into what prominent 
relief — even as if a dim picture should leap 
suddenly from its canvas — Clifford’s character 
was thrown by this apparently trifling annoy¬ 
ance. The secret was, that an individual of his 
temper can always be pricked more acutely 
through his sense of the beautiful and harmoni- 
161 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ous than through his heart. It is even possible 
— for similar cases have often happened — that 
if Clifford, in his foregoing life, had enjoyed 
the means of cultivating his taste to its utmost 
perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before 
this period, have completely eaten out or filed 
away his affections. Shall we venture to pro¬ 
nounce, therefore, that his long and black calam¬ 
ity may not have had a redeeming drop of 
mercy at the bottom ? 

“ Dear Clifford, I wish I could keep the 
sound from your ears,” said Hepzibah, pa¬ 
tiently, but reddening with a painful suffusion 
of shame. “It is very disagreeable even to 
me. But, do you know, Clifford, I have some¬ 
thing to tell you ? This ugly noise, — pray 
run, Phoebe, and see who is there ! — this 
naughty little tinkle is nothing but our shop- 
bell ! ” 

“ Shop-bell! ” repeated Clifford, with a be¬ 
wildered stare. 

“ Yes, our shop-bell,” said Hepzibah, a cer¬ 
tain natural dignity, mingled with deep emotion, 
now asserting itself in her manner. “ For you 
must know, dearest Clifford, that we are very 
poor. And there was no other resource, but 
either to accept assistance from a hand that I 
would push aside (and so would you !) were it 
to offer bread when we were dying for it, — no 
help, save from him, or else to earn our sub- 
162 


THE GUEST 


sistence with my own hands ! Alone, I might 
have been content to starve. But you were to 
be given back to me ! Do you think, then, 
dear Clifford,” added she, with a wretched 
smile, cc that I have brought an irretrievable 
disgrace on the old house, by opening a little 
shop in the front gable ? Our great-great¬ 
grandfather did the same, when there was far 
less need ! Are you ashamed of me ? ” 

“ Shame ! Disgrace ! Do you speak these 
words to me, Hepzibah ? ” said Clifford, — not 
angrily, however ; for when a man's spirit has 
been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish 
at small offences, but never resentful of great 
ones. So he spoke with only a grieved emotion. 
“It was not kind to say so, Hepzibah ! What 
shame can befall me now ? ” 

And then the unnerved man — he that had 
been born for enjoyment, but had met a doom 
so very wretched — burst into a woman's pas¬ 
sion of tears. It was but of brief continuance, 
however ; soon leaving him in a quiescent, and, 
to judge by his countenance, not an uncomfort¬ 
able state. From this mood, too, he partially 
rallied for an instant, and looked at Hepzibah 
with a smile, the keen, half-derisory purport of 
which was a puzzle to her. 

“ Are we so very poor, Hepzibah ? ” said he. 
Finally, his chair being deep and softly cush¬ 
ioned, Clifford fell asleep. Hearing the more 
163 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


regular rise and fall of his breath (which, how¬ 
ever, even then, instead of being strong and 
full, had a feeble kind of tremor, corresponding 
with the lack of vigor in his character), — hear¬ 
ing these tokens of settled slumber, Hepzibah 
seized the opportunity to peruse his face more 
attentively than she had yet dared to do. Her 
heart melted away in tears ; her profoundest 
spirit sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, 
but inexpressibly sad. In this depth of grief 
and pity she felt that there was no irreverence 
in gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined 
face. But no sooner was she a little relieved 
than her conscience smote her for gazing curi¬ 
ously at him, now that he was so changed ; and, 
turning hastily away, Hepzibah let down the 
curtain over the sunny window, and left Clifford 
to slumber there. 


164 


VIII 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

P HGEBE, on entering the shop, beheld 
there the already familiar face of the 
little devourer — if we can reckon his 
mighty deeds aright — of Jim Crow, the ele¬ 
phant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the 
locomotive. Having expended his private for¬ 
tune, on the two preceding days, in the pur¬ 
chase of the above unheard-of luxuries, the 
young gentleman’s present errand was on the 
part of his mother, in quest of three eggs and 
half a pound of raisins. These articles Phoebe 
accordingly supplied, and, as a mark of grati¬ 
tude for his previous patronage, and a slight 
superadded morsel after breakfast, put likewise 
into his hand a whale ! The great fish, revers¬ 
ing his experience with the prophet of Nineveh, 
immediately began his progress down the same 
red pathway of fate whither so varied a caravan 
had preceded him. This remarkable urchin, in 
truth, was the very emblem of old Father Time, 
both in respect of his all-devouring appetite for 
men and things, and because he, as well as 
165 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


Time, after ingulfing thus much of creation, 
looked almost as youthful as if he had been 
just that moment made. 

After partly closing the door, the child turned 
back, and mumbled something to Phoebe, which, 
as the whale was but half disposed of, she could 
not perfectly understand. 

“ What did you say, my little fellow ? ” 
asked she. 

“ Mother wants to know,” repeated Ned 
Higgins more distinctly, “ how Old Maid 
Pyncheon’s brother does? Folks say he has 
got home.” 

“ My cousin Hepzibah’s brother ? ” ex¬ 
claimed Phoebe, surprised at this sudden expla¬ 
nation of the relationship between Hepzibah 
and her guest. “ Her brother! And where 
can he have been ? ” 

The little boy only put his thumb to his 
broad snub-nose, with that look of shrewdness 
which a child, spending much of his time in 
the street, so soon learns to throw over his 
features, however unintelligent in themselves. 
Then as Phoebe continued to gaze at him, 
without answering his mother's message, he 
took his departure. 

As the child went down the steps, a gentle¬ 
man ascended them, and made his entrance 
into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it 
possessed the advantage of a little more height, 
166 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

would have been the stately figure of a man 
considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a 
black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broad¬ 
cloth as closely as possible. A gold-headed 
cane, of rare Oriental wood, added materially 
to the high respectability of his aspect, as did 
also a neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, 
and the conscientious polish of his boots. 
His dark, square countenance, with its almost 
shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally im¬ 
pressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather 
stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken 
upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a 
look of exceeding good-humor and benevo¬ 
lence. Owing, however, to a somewhat mas¬ 
sive accumulation of animal substance about 
the lower region of his face, the look was, per¬ 
haps, unctuous rather than spiritual, and had, 
so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not 
altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless in¬ 
tended it to be. A susceptible observer, at 
any rate, might have regarded it as affording 
very little evidence of the general benignity of 
soul whereof it purported to be the outward 
reflection. And if the observer chanced to be 
ill natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he 
would probably suspect that the smile on the 
gentleman’s face was a good deal akin to the 
shine on his boots, and that each must have 
cost him and his bootblack, respectively, a good 
167 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve 
them. 

As the stranger entered the little shop, where 
the projection of the second story and the thick 
foliage of the elm-tree, as well as the commod¬ 
ities at the window, created a sort of gray me¬ 
dium, his smile grew as intense as if he had 
set his heart on counteracting the whole gloom 
of the atmosphere (besides any moral gloom 
pertaining to Hepzibah and her inmates) by 
the unassisted light of his countenance. On 
perceiving a young rosebud of a girl, instead 
of the gaunt presence of the old maid, a look 
of surprise was manifest. He at first knit his 
brows ; then smiled with more unctuous benig¬ 
nity than ever. 

“ Ah, I see how it is ! ” said he in a deep 
voice, — a voice which, had it come from the 
throat of an uncultivated man, would have 
been gruff, but, by dint of careful training, was 
now sufficiently agreeable, — “ I was not aware 
that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had commenced 
business under such favorable auspices. You 
are her assistant, I suppose ? ” 

<c I certainly am,” answered Phoebe, and 
added, with a little air of ladylike assumption 
(for, civil as the gentleman was, he evidently 
took her to be a young person serving for 
wages), “lama cousin of Miss Hepzibah, on 
a visit to her.” 


168 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


“Her cousin? — and from the country? 
Pray pardon me, then,” said the gentleman, 
bowing and smiling, as Phoebe never had been 
bowed to nor smiled on before ; “ in that case, 
we must be better acquainted ; for, unless I 
am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kins¬ 
woman likewise ! Let me see, — Mary ? — 
Dolly ? — Phoebe ? — yes, Phoebe is the name ! 
Is it possible that you are Phoebe Pyncheon, 
only child of my dear cousin and classmate, 
Arthur ? Ah, I see your father now, about 
your mouth ! Yes, yes ! we must be better ac¬ 
quainted ! I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely 
you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon ? ” 
As Phoebe curtsied in reply, the Judge bent 
forward, with the pardonable and even praise¬ 
worthy purpose — considering the nearness of 
blood and the difference of age — of bestowing 
on his young relative a kiss of acknowledged 
kindred and natural affection. Unfortunately 
(without design, or only with such instinctive 
design as gives no account of itself to the intel¬ 
lect) Phoebe, just at the critical moment, drew 
back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, 
with his body bent over the counter and his lips 
protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd 
predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a 
modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing 
a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous 
as the Judge prided himself on eschewing all 
169 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a 
substance. The truth was, — and it is Phoebe’s 
only excuse, — that, although Judge Pyncheon’s 
glowing benignity might not be absolutely un¬ 
pleasant to the feminine beholder, with the 
width of a street, or even an ordinary-sized 
room, interposed between, yet it became quite 
too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiog¬ 
nomy (so roughly bearded, too, that no razor 
could ever make it smooth) sought to bring 
itself into actual contact with the object of its 
regards. The man, the sex, somehow or other, 
was entirely too prominent in the Judge’s 
demonstrations of that sort. Phoebe’s eyes 
sank, and, without knowing why, she felt her¬ 
self blushing deeply under his look. Yet she 
had been kissed before, and without any par¬ 
ticular squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen 
different cousins, younger as well as older than 
this dark-browed, grisly-bearded, white-neck- 
clothed, and unctuously benevolent Judge! 
Then, why not by him ? 

On raising her eyes, Phoebe was startled by 
the change in Judge Pyncheon’s face. It was 
quite as striking, allowing for the difference of 
scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad 
sunshine and just before a thunder-storm ; not 
that it had the passionate intensity of the latter 
aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a 
day-long brooding cloud. 

170 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


“ Dear me! what is to be done now ? ” 
thought the country girl to herself. “ He 
looks as if there were nothing softer in him 
than a rock, nor milder than the east wind! I 
meant no harm ! Since he is really my cousin, 
I would have let him kiss me, if I could! ” 
Then, all at once, it struck Phoebe that this 
very Judge Pyncheon was the original of the 
miniature which the daguerreotypist had shown 
her in the garden, and that the hard, stern, 
relentless look, now on his face, was the same 
that the sun had so inflexibly persisted in bring¬ 
ing out. Was it, therefore, no momentary 
mood, but, however skilfully concealed, the 
settled temper of his life ? And not merely so, 
but was it hereditary in him, and transmitted 
down, as a precious heirloom, from that bearded 
ancestor, in whose picture both the expression 
and, to a singular degree, the features of the 
modern Judge were shown as by a kind of 
prophecy ? A deeper philosopher than Phoebe 
might have found something very terrible in 
this idea. It implied that the weaknesses and 
defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, 
and the moral diseases which lead to crime are 
handed down from one generation to another, 
by a far surer process of transmission than 
human law has been able to establish in respect 
to the riches and honors which it seeks to 
entail upon posterity. 

* 7 * 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


But, as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe’s 
eyes rested again on the Judge’s countenance 
than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she 
found herself quite overpowered by the sultry, 
dog-day heat, as it were, of benevolence, which 
this excellent man diffused out of his great 
heart into the surrounding atmosphere, — very 
much like a serpent, which, as a preliminary 
to fascination, is said to fill the air with his 
peculiar odor. 

“ I like that, Cousin Phoebe ! ” cried he, with 
an emphatic nod of approbation. “ I like it 
much, my little cousin ! You are a good child, 
and know how to take care of yourself. A 
young girl — especially if she be a very pretty 
one — can never be too chary of her lips.” 

“ Indeed, sir,” said Phoebe, trying to laugh 
the matter off, “ I did not mean to be unkind.” 

Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely 
owing to the inauspicious commencement of 
their acquaintance, she still acted under a cer¬ 
tain reserve, which was by no means customary 
to her frank and genial nature. The fantasy 
would not quit her, that the original Puritan, 
of whom she had heard so many sombre tra¬ 
ditions, — the progenitor of the whole race of 
New England Pyncheons, the founder of the 
House of the Seven Gables, and who had died 
so strangely in it, — had now stept into the 
shop. In these days of off-hand equipment, the 
172 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


matter was easily enough arranged. On his ar¬ 
rival from the other world, he had merely found 
it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a 
barber's, who had trimmed down the Puritan's 
full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers, then, 
patronizing a ready-made clothing establish¬ 
ment, he had exchanged his velvet doublet and 
sable cloak, with the richly worked band under 
his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, 
vest, and pantaloons ; and lastly, putting aside 
his steel-hilted broadsword to take up a gold¬ 
headed cane, the Colonel Pyncheon of two cen¬ 
turies ago steps forward as the Judge of the 
passing moment! 

Of course, Phoebe was far too sensible a girl 
to entertain this idea in any other way than as 
matter for a smile. Possibly, also, could the 
two personages have stood together before her 
eye, many points of difference would have been 
perceptible, and perhaps only a general resem¬ 
blance. The long lapse of intervening years, 
in a climate so unlike that which had fostered 
the ancestral Englishman, must inevitably have 
wrought important changes in the physical sys¬ 
tem of his descendant. The Judge's volume 
of muscle could hardly be the same as the Colo¬ 
nel's ; there was undoubtedly less beef in him. 
Though looked upon as a weighty man among 
his contemporaries in respect of animal sub¬ 
stance, and as favored with a remarkable degree 
*73 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


of fundamental development, well adapting him 
for the judicial bench, we conceive that the 
modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the 
same balance with his ancestor, would have re¬ 
quired at least an old-fashioned fifty-six to keep 
the scale in equilibrio. Then the Judge’s face 
had lost the ruddy English hue that showed its 
warmth through all the duskiness of the Colo¬ 
nel’s weather-beaten cheek, and had taken a 
sallow shade, the established complexion of his 
countrymen. If we mistake not, moreover, a 
certain quality of nervousness had become more 
or less manifest, even in so solid a specimen of 
Puritan descent as the gentleman now under 
discussion. As one of its effects, it bestowed 
on his countenance a quicker mobility than the 
old Englishman’s had possessed, and keener 
vivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier some¬ 
thing, on which these acute endowments seemed 
to act like dissolving acids. This process, for 
aught we know, may belong to the great sys¬ 
tem of human progress, which, with every as¬ 
cending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity 
for animal force, may be destined gradually to 
spiritualize us, by refining away our grosser 
attributes of body. If so, Judge Pyncheon 
could endure a century or two more of such 
refinement as well as most other men. 

The similarity, intellectual and moral, be¬ 
tween the Judge and his ancestor appears to 
*74 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

have been at least as strong as the resemblance 
of mien and feature would afford reason to an¬ 
ticipate. In old Colonel Pyncheon’s funeral dis¬ 
course the clergyman absolutely canonized his 
deceased parishioner, and opening, as it were, 
a vista through the roof of the church, and 
thence through the firmament above, showed 
him seated, harp in hand, among the crowned 
choristers of the spiritual world. On his tomb¬ 
stone, too, the record is highly eulogistic; nor 
does history, so far as he holds a place upon 
its page, assail the consistency and uprightness 
of his character. So also, as regards the Judge 
Pyncheon of to-day, neither clergyman, nor 
legal critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, nor his¬ 
torian of general or local politics, would venture 
a word against this eminent person’s sincerity 
as a Christian, or respectability as a man, or 
integrity as a judge, or courage and faithful¬ 
ness as the often-tried representative of his po¬ 
litical party. But, besides these cold, formal, 
and empty words of the chisel that inscribes, 
the voice that speaks, and the pen that writes, 
for the public eye and for distant time,— and 
which inevitably lose much of their truth and 
freedom by the fatal consciousness of so doing, 
— there were traditions about the ancestor, and 
private diurnal gossip about the Judge, remark¬ 
ably accordant in their testimony. It is often 
instructive to take the woman’s, the private 
175 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and domestic, view of a public man ; nor can 
anything be more curious than the vast dis¬ 
crepancy between portraits intended for engrav¬ 
ing and the pencil-sketches that pass from hand 
to hand behind the original's back. 

For example : tradition affirmed that the 
Puritan had been greedy of wealth ; the Judge, 
too, with all the show of liberal expenditure, 
was said to be as close-fisted as if his gripe were 
of iron. The ancestor had clothed himself in 
a grim assumption of kindliness, a rough hearti¬ 
ness of word and manner, which most people 
took to be the genuine warmth of nature, mak¬ 
ing its way through the thick and inflexible hide 
of a manly character. His descendant, in com¬ 
pliance with the requirements of a nicer age, had 
etherealized this rude benevolence into that 
broad benignity of smile wherewith he shone 
like a noonday sun along the streets, or glowed 
like a household fire in the drawing-rooms of 
his private acquaintance. The Puritan — if 
not belied by some singular stories, murmured, 
even at this day, under the narrator’s breath — 
had fallen into certain transgressions to which 
men of his great animal development, whatever 
their faith or principles, must continue liable, 
until they put off impurity, along with the 
gross earthly substance that involves it. We 
must not stain our page with any contempo¬ 
rary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have 
176 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

been whispered against the Judge. The Puri¬ 
tan, again, an autocrat in his own household, 
had worn out three wives, and, merely by the 
remorseless weight and hardness of his charac¬ 
ter in the conjugal relation, had sent them, one 
after another, broken-hearted, to their graves. 
Here the parallel, in some sort, fails. The 
Judge had wedded but a single wife, and lost 
her in the third or fourth year of their marriage. 
There was a fable, however, — for such we 
choose to consider it, though, not impossibly, 
typical of Judge Pyncheon’s marital deport¬ 
ment,— that the lady got her death-blow in 
the honeymoon, and never smiled again, be¬ 
cause her husband compelled her to serve him 
with coffee every morning at his bedside, in 
token of fealty to her liege-lord and master. 

But it is too fruitful a subject, this of heredi¬ 
tary resemblances, — the frequent recurrence of 
which, in a direct line, is truly unaccountable, 
when we consider how large an accumulation of 
ancestry lies behind every man at the distance 
of one or two centuries. We shall only add, 
therefore, that the Puritan — so, at least, says 
chimney-corner tradition, which often preserves 
traits of character with marvellous fidelity — 
was bold, imperious, relentless, crafty; laying 
his purposes deep, and following them out 
with an inveteracy of pursuit that knew neither 
rest nor conscience; trampling on the weak, 
177 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

and, when essential to his ends, doing his ut¬ 
most to beat down the strong. Whether the 
Judge in any degree resembled him, the further 
progress of our narrative may show. 

Scarcely any of the items in the above-drawn 
parallel occurred to Phoebe, whose country birth 
and residence, in truth, had left her pitifully 
ignorant of most of the family traditions, which 
lingered, like cobwebs and incrustations of 
smoke, about the rooms and chimney-corners 
of the House of the Seven Gables. Yet there 
was a circumstance, very trifling in itself, which 
impressed her with an odd degree of horror. 
She had heard of the anathema flung by Maule, 
the executed wizard, against Colonel Pyncheon 
and his posterity, — that God would give them 
blood to drink, — and likewise of the popular 
notion, that this miraculous blood might now 
and then be heard gurgling in their throats. 
The latter scandal — as became a person of 
sense, and, more especially, a member of the 
Pyncheon family — Phoebe had set down for 
the absurdity which it unquestionably was. But 
ancient superstitions, after being steeped in hu¬ 
man hearts and embodied in human breath, and 
passing from lip to ear in manifold repetition, 
through a series of generations, become imbued 
with an effect of homely truth. The smoke of 
the domestic hearth has scented them through 
and through. By long transmission among 
178 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

household facts, they grow to look like them, 
and have such a familiar way of making them¬ 
selves at home that their influence is usually 
greater than we suspect. Thus it happened, that 
when Phoebe heard a certain noise in Judge Pyn- 
cheon’s throat, — rather habitual with him, not 
altogether voluntary, yet indicative of nothing, 
unless it were a slight bronchial complaint, or, 
as some people hinted, an apoplectic symptom, 
— when the girl heard this queer and awkward 
ingurgitation (which the writer never did hear, 
and therefore cannot describe), she very fool¬ 
ishly started, and clasped her hands. 

Of course, it was exceedingly ridiculous in 
Phoebe to be discomposed by such a trifle, and 
still more unpardonable to show her discom¬ 
posure to the individual most concerned in it. 
But the incident chimed in so oddly with her 
previous fancies about the Colonel and the 
Judge, that, for the moment, it seemed quite 
to mingle their identity. 

“ What is the matter with you, young wo¬ 
man ? ” said Judge Pyncheon, giving her one 
of his harsh looks. “ Are you afraid of any¬ 
thing ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing, sir, — nothing in the world ! ” 
answered Phoebe, with a little laugh of vexa¬ 
tion at herself. “ But perhaps you wish to 
speak with my cousin Hepzibah. Shall I call 
her?” 


179 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Stay a moment, if you please,” said the 
Judge, again beaming sunshine out of his face. 
“ You seem to be a little nervous this morning. 
The town air. Cousin Phoebe, does not agree 
with your good, wholesome country habits. Or 
has anything happened to disturb you ? — any¬ 
thing remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah’s family? 
— An arrival, eh ? I thought so ! No wonder 
you are out of sorts, my little cousin. To be 
an inmate with such a guest may well startle an 
innocent young girl ! ” 

“ You quite puzzle me, sir,” replied Phoebe, 
gazing inquiringly at the Judge. “ There is 
no frightful guest in the house, but only a poor, 
gentle, childlike man, whom I believe to be 
Cousin Hepzibah’s brother. I am afraid (but 
you, sir, will know better than I) that he is not 
quite in his sound senses; but so mild and 
quiet he seems to be, that a mother might trust 
her baby with him ; and I think he would play 
with the baby as if he were only a few years 
older than itself. He startle me ! — Oh, no 
indeed ! ” 

“ I rejoice to hear so favorable and so ingen¬ 
uous an account of my cousin Clifford,” said 
the benevolent Judge. <c Many years ago, when 
we were boys and young men together, I had a 
great affection for him, and still feel a tender 
interest in all his concerns. You say. Cousin 
Phoebe, he appears to be weak minded. Hea- 
180 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


yen grant him at least enough of intellect to 
repent of his past sins ! ” 

“ Nobody, I fancy,” observed Phoebe, “can 
have fewer to repent of.” 

“ And is it possible, my dear,” rejoined the 
Judge, with a commiserating look, “ that you 
have never heard of Clifford Pyncheon ? — that 
you know nothing of his history ? Well, it is 
all right; and your mother has shown a very 
proper regard for the good name of the family 
with which she connected herself. Believe the 
best you can of this unfortunate person, and 
hope the best! It is a rule which Christians 
should always follow, in their judgments of 
one another ; and especially is it right and wise 
among near relatives, whose characters have ne¬ 
cessarily a degree of mutual dependence. But 
is Clifford in the parlor ? I will just step in 
and see.” 

“ Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin 
Hepzibah,” said Phoebe ; hardly knowing, how¬ 
ever, whether she ought to obstruct the en¬ 
trance of so affectionate a kinsman into the 
private regions of the house. “ Her brother 
seemed to be just falling asleep after breakfast; 
and I am sure she would not like him to be 
disturbed. Pray, sir, let me give her notice ! ” 
But the Judge showed a singular determina¬ 
tion to enter unannounced ; and as Phoebe, with 
the vivacity of a person whose movements un- 
181 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


consciously answer to her thoughts, had stepped 
towards the door, he used little or no ceremony 
in putting her aside. 

“ No, no, Miss Phoebe! ” said Judge Pyn- 
cheon in a voice as deep as a thunder-growl, 
and with a frown as black as the cloud whence 
it issues. “ Stay you here ! I know the house, 
and know my cousin Hepzibah, and know her 
brother Clifford likewise ! — nor need my little 
country cousin put herself to the trouble of an¬ 
nouncing me ! ” — in these latter words, by the 
bye, there were symptoms of a change from his 
sudden harshness into his previous benignity 
of manner. “ I am at home here, Phoebe, you 
must recollect, and you are the stranger. I will 
just step in, therefore, and see for myself how 
Clifford is, and assure him and Hepzibah of 
my kindly feelings and best wishes. It is right, 
at this juncture, that they should both hear 
from my own lips how much I desire to serve 
them. Ha ! here is Hepzibah herself! ” 

Such was the case. The vibrations of the 
Judge’s voice had reached the old gentlewoman 
in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted, 
waiting on her brother’s slumber. She now 
issued forth, as would appear, to defend the 
entrance, looking, we must needs say, amaz¬ 
ingly like the dragon which, in fairy tales, is 
wont to be the guardian over an enchanted 
beauty. The habitual scowl of her brow was 
182 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


undeniably too fierce, at this moment, to pass 
itself off on the innocent score of near-sighted¬ 
ness ; and it was bent on Judge Pyncheon in a 
way that seemed to confound, if not alarm him, 
so inadequately had he estimated the moral 
force of a deeply grounded antipathy. She 
made a repelling gesture with her hand, and 
stood a perfect picture of prohibition, at full 
length, in the dark frame of the doorway. But 
we must betray Hepzibah’s secret, and confess 
that the native timorousness of her character 
even now developed itself in a quick tremor, 
which, to her own perception, set each of her 
joints at variance with its fellows. 

Possibly, the Judge was aware how little true 
hardihood lay behind Hepzibah’s formidable 
front. At any rate, being a gentleman of steady 
nerves, he soon recovered himself, and failed not 
to approach his cousin with outstretched hand; 
adopting the sensible precaution, however, to 
cover his advance with a smile, so broad and 
sultry, that, had it been only half as warm as. 
it looked, a trellis of grapes might at once have 
turned purple under its summer-like exposure. 
It may have been his purpose, indeed, to melt 
poor Hepzibah on the spot, as if she were a 
figure of yellow wax. 

“ Hepzibah, my beloved cousin, I am re¬ 
joiced ! ” exclaimed the Judge most emphat¬ 
ically. “ Now, at length, you have something 

183 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to live for. Yes, and all of us, let me say, 
your friends and kindred, have more to live for 
than we had yesterday. I have lost no time in 
hastening to offer any assistance in my power 
towards making Clifford comfortable. He be¬ 
longs to us all. I know how much he requires, 
— how much he used to require, — with his 
delicate taste, and his love of the beautiful. 
Anything in my house, — pictures, books, wine, 
luxuries of the table, — he may command them 
all ! It would afford me most heartfelt gratifi¬ 
cation to see him ! Shall I step in, this mo¬ 
ment ? ” 

“No,” replied Hepzibah, her voice quiver¬ 
ing too painfully to allow of many words. “He 
cannot see visitors ! ” 

“ A visitor, my dear cousin ! — do you call 
me so ? ” cried the Judge, whose sensibility, it 
seems, was hurt by the coldness of the phrase. 
“ Nay, then, let me be Clifford’s host, and your 
own likewise. Come at once to my house. 
The country air, and all the conveniences, — I 
may say luxuries, — that I have gathered about 
me, will do wonders for him. And you and I, 
dear Hepzibah, will consult together, and watch 
together, and labor together, to make our dear 
Clifford happy. Come ! why should we make 
more words about what is both a duty and a 
pleasure on my part ? Come to me at once ! ” 

On hearing these so hospitable offers, and 
184 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


such generous recognition of the claims of 
kindred, Phoebe felt very much in the mood 
of running up to Judge Pyncheon, and giving 
him, of her own accord, the kiss from which 
she had so recently shrunk away. It was quite 
otherwise with Hepzibah; the Judge's smile 
seemed to operate on her acerbity of heart like 
sunshine upon vinegar, making it ten times 
sourer than ever. 

“ Clifford," said she, — still too agitated to 
utter more than an abrupt sentence, — “ Clif¬ 
ford has a home here ! " 

“ May Heaven forgive you, Hepzibah," said 
Judge Pyncheon, — reverently lifting his eyes 
towards that high court of equity to which he 
appealed, — “ if you suffer any ancient preju¬ 
dice or animosity to weigh with you in this 
matter ! I stand here with an open heart, will¬ 
ing and anxious to receive yourself and Clifford 
into it. Do not refuse my good offices, — my 
earnest propositions for your welfare ! They 
are such, in all respects, as it behooves your 
nearest kinsman to make. It will be a heavy 
responsibility, cousin, if you confine your bro¬ 
ther to this dismal house and stifled air, when 
the delightful freedom of my country-seat is at 
his command." 

“ It would never suit Clifford," said Hepzi¬ 
bah, as briefly as before. 

“ Woman ! " broke forth the Judge, giving 

185 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


way to his resentment, “ what is the meaning 
of all this? Have you other resources? Nay, 
I suspected as much ! Take care, Hepzibah, 
take care ! Clifford is on the brink of as black 
a ruin as ever befell him yet ! But why do I 
talk with you, woman as you are? Make way! 
— I must see Clifford ! ” 

Hepzibah spread out her gaunt figure across 
the door, and seemed really to increase in bulk; 
looking the more terrible, also, because there 
was so much terror and agitation in her heart. 
But Judge Pyncheon’s evident purpose of for¬ 
cing a passage was interrupted by a voice from 
the inner room ; a weak, tremulous, wailing 
voice, indicating helpless alarm, with no more 
energy for self-defence than belongs to a fright¬ 
ened infant. 

<c Hepzibah, Hepzibah!” cried the voice; 
“ go down on your knees to him! Kiss his 
feet! Entreat him not to come in ! Oh, let 
him have mercy on me! Mercy ! — mercy ! ” 

For the instant, it appeared doubtful whether 
it were not the Judge’s resolute purpose to set 
Hepzibah aside, and step across the threshold 
into the parlor, whence issued that broken and 
miserable murmur of entreaty. It was not pity 
that restrained him, for, at the first sound of* 
the enfeebled voice, a red fire kindled in his 
eyes, and he made a quick pace forward, with 
something inexpressibly fierce and grim darken- 
186 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 

ing forth, as it were, out of the whole man. To 
know Judge Pyncheon was to see him at that 
moment. After such a revelation, let him 
smile with what sultriness he would, he could 
much sooner turn grapes purple, or pumpkins 
yellow, than melt the iron-branded impression 
out of the beholder’s memory. And it ren¬ 
dered his aspect not the less, but more frightful, 
that it seemed not to express wrath or hatred, 
but a certain hot fellness of purpose, which 
annihilated everything but itself. 

Yet, after all, are we not slandering an ex¬ 
cellent and amiable man? Look at the Judge 
now ! He is apparently conscious of having 
erred, in too energetically pressing his deeds of 
loving-kindness on persons unable to appreci¬ 
ate them. He will await their better mood, 
and hold himself as ready to assist them then 
as at this moment. As he draws back from 
the door, an all-comprehensive benignity blazes 
from his visage, indicating that he gathers Hep- 
zibah, little Phoebe, and the invisible Clifford, 
all three, together with the whole world be¬ 
sides, into his immense heart, and gives them 
a warm bath in its flood of affection. 

“ You do me great wrong, dear Cousin Hep- 
zibah ! ” said he, first kindly offering her his 
hand, and then drawing on his glove prepara¬ 
tory to departure. “Very great wrong! But 
I forgive it, and will study to make you think 
187 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


better of me. Of course, our poor Clifford 
being in so unhappy a state of mind, I cannot 
think of urging an interview at present. But 
I shall watch over his welfare as if he were my 
own beloved brother; nor do I at all despair, 
my dear cousin, of constraining both him and 
you to acknowledge your injustice. When 
that shall happen, I desire no other revenge 
than your acceptance of the best offices in my 
power to do you.” 

With a bow to Hepzibah, and a degree of 
paternal benevolence in his parting nod to 
Phoebe, the Judge left the shop, and went smil¬ 
ing along the street. As is customary with the 
rich, when they aim at the honors of a repub¬ 
lic, he apologized, as it were, to the people, for 
his wealth, prosperity, and elevated station, by 
a free and hearty manner towards those who 
knew him ; putting off the more of his dignity 
in due proportion with the humbleness of the 
man whom he saluted, and thereby proving a 
haughty consciousness of his advantages as irre- 
fragably as if he had marched forth preceded 
by a troop of lackeys to clear the way. On this 
particular forenoon, so excessive was the warmth 
of Judge Pyncheon’s kindly aspect, that (such, 
at least, was the rumor about town) an extra 
passage of the water-carts was found essential, 
in order to lay the dust occasioned by so much 
extra sunshine ! 


188 


THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY 


No sooner had he disappeared than Hepzi- 
bah grew deadly white, and, staggering towards 
Phoebe, let her head fall on the young girl’s 
shoulder. 

“ O Phoebe ! ” murmured she, “ that man 
has been the horror of my life! Shall I never, 
never have the courage, — will my voice never 
cease from trembling long enough to let me tell 
him what he is ? ” 

“Is he so very wicked?” asked Phoebe. 
“Yet his offers were surely kind ! ” 

“ Do not speak of them, — he has a heart 
of iron ! ” rejoined Hepzibah. “ Go, now, and 
talk to Clifford ! Amuse and keep him quiet! 
It would disturb him wretchedly to see me so 
agitated as I am. There, go, dear child, and I 
will try to look after the shop.” 

Phoebe went accordingly, but perplexed her¬ 
self, meanwhile, with queries as to the purport 
of the scene which she had just witnessed, and 
also whether judges, clergymen, and other char¬ 
acters of that eminent stamp and respectability, 
could really, in any single instance, be other¬ 
wise than just and upright men. A doubt of 
this nature has a most disturbing influence, and, 
if shown to be a fact, comes with fearful and 
startling effect on minds of the trim, orderly, 
and limit-loving class, in which we find our 
little country girl. Dispositions more boldly 
speculative may derive a stern enjoyment from 
189 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

the discovery, since there must be evil in the 
world, that a high man is as likely to grasp his 
share of it as a low one. A wider scope of 
view, and a deeper insight, may see rank, dig¬ 
nity, and station, all proved illusory, so far as 
regards their claim to human reverence, and yet 
not feel as if the universe were thereby tumbled 
headlong into chaos. But Phoebe, in order to 
keep the universe in its old place, was fain to 
smother, in some degree, her own intuitions as 
to Judge Pyncheon’s character. And as for 
her cousin’s testimony in disparagement of it, 
she concluded that Hepzibah’s judgment was 
embittered by one of those family feuds which 
render hatred the more deadly by the dead and 
corrupted love that they intermingle with its 
native poison. 

190 


IX 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 

T RULY was there something high, gen¬ 
erous, and noble in the native compo¬ 
sition of our poor old Hepzibah ! Or 
else, — and it was quite as probably the case, — 
she had been enriched by poverty, developed 
by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary 
affection of her life, and thus endowed with 
heroism, which never could have characterized 
her in what are called happier circumstances. 
Through dreary years Hepzibah had looked 
forward — for the most part despairingly, never 
with any confidence of hope, but always with 
the feeling that it was her brightest possibility 
— to the very position in which she now found 
herself. In her own behalf, she had asked 
nothing of Providence but the opportunity of 
devoting herself to this brother, whom she had 
so loved, — so admired for what he was, or 
might have been, — and to whom she had kept 
her faith, alone of all the world, wholly, unfal¬ 
teringly, at every instant, and throughout life. 
And here, in his late decline, the lost one had 
come back out of his long and strange misfor- 
I 9 I 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


tune, and was thrown on her sympathy, as it 
seemed, not merely for the bread of his physi¬ 
cal existence, but for everything that should 
keep him morally alive. She had responded 
to the call. She had come forward, — our 
poor, gaunt Hepzibah, in her rusty silks, with 
her rigid joints, and the sad perversity of her 
scowl, — ready to do her utmost; and with af¬ 
fection enough, if that were all, to do a hun¬ 
dred times as much! There could be few 
more tearful sights, — and Heaven forgive us 
if a smile insist on mingling with our concep¬ 
tion of it! — few sights with truer pathos in 
them, than Hepzibah presented on that first 
afternoon. 

How patiently did she endeavor to wrap 
Clifford up in her great, warm love, and make 
it all the world to him, so that he should retain 
no torturing sense of the coldness and dreari¬ 
ness without! Her little efforts to amuse him ! 
How pitiful, yet magnanimous, they were ! 

Remembering his early love of poetry and 
fiction, she unlocked a bookcase, and took 
down several books that had been excellent 
reading in their day. There was a volume of 
Pope, with the Rape of the Lock in it, and 
another of the Tatler, and an odd one of Dry- 
den’s Miscellanies, all with tarnished gilding 
on their covers, and thoughts of tarnished bril¬ 
liancy inside. They had no success with Clif- 
192 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 

ford. These, and all such writers of society, 
whose new works glow like the rich texture of 
a just-woven carpet, must be content to relin¬ 
quish their charm, for every reader, after an age 
or two, and could hardly be supposed to retain 
any portion of it for a mind that had utterly 
lost its estimate of modes and manners. Hep- 
zibah then took up Rasselas, and began to 
read of the Happy Valley, with a vague idea 
that some secret of a contented life had there 
been elaborated, which might at least serve 
Clifford and herself for this one day. But the 
Happy Valley had a cloud over it. Hepzibah 
troubled her auditor, moreover, by innumerable 
sins of emphasis, which he seemed to detect, 
without any reference to the meaning; nor, in 
fact, did he appear to take much note of the 
sense of what she read, but evidently felt the 
tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its 
profit. His sister’s voice, too, naturally harsh, 
had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, 
contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once 
gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable 
as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this life¬ 
long croak, accompanying each word of joy or 
sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled 
melancholy ; and wherever it occurs, the whole 
history of misfortune is conveyed in its slightest 
accent. The effect is as if the voice had been 
dyed black; or, — if we must use a more mod- 
193 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


erate simile, — this miserable croak, running 
through all the variations of the voice, is like a 
black silken thread, on which the crystal beads 
of speech are strung, and whence they take 
their hue. Such voices have put on mourning 
for dead hopes ; and they ought to die and be 
buried along with them ! 

Discerning that Clifford was not gladdened 
by her efforts, Hepzibah searched about the 
house for the means of more exhilarating pas¬ 
time. At one time, her eyes chanced to rest 
on Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord. It was a 
moment of great peril; for, — despite the tra¬ 
ditionary awe that had gathered over this instru¬ 
ment of music, and the dirges which spiritual 
fingers were said to play on it, — the devoted 
sister had solemn thoughts of thrumming on 
its chords for Clifford’s benefit, and accompany¬ 
ing the performance with her voice. Poor Clif¬ 
ford! Poor Hepzibah! Poor harpsichord! All 
three would have been miserable together. By 
some good agency, — possibly, by the unre¬ 
cognized interposition of the long-buried Alice 
herself, — the threatening calamity was averted. 

But the worst of all — the hardest stroke of 
fate for Hepzibah to endure, and perhaps for 
Clifford, too — was his invincible distaste for 
her appearance. Her features, never the most 
agreeable, and now harsh with age and grief, 
and resentment against the world for his sake ; 

194 


CLIFFORD AND PHOEBE 

her dress, and especially her turban ; the queer 
and quaint manners, which had unconsciously 
grown upon her in solitude, — such being the 
poor gentlewoman's outward characteristics, it 
is no great marvel, although the mournfullest 
of pities, that the instinctive lover of the Beau¬ 
tiful was fain to turn away his eyes. There was 
no help for it. It would be the latest impulse 
to die within him. In his last extremity, the 
expiring breath stealing faintly through Clif¬ 
ford’s lips, he would doubtless press Hepzibah’s 
hand, in fervent recognition of all her lavished 
love, and close his eyes, — but not so much to 
die, as to be constrained to look no longer on 
her face! Poor Hepzibah! She took coun¬ 
sel with herself what might be done, and thought 
of putting ribbons on her turban; but, by the 
instant rush of several guardian angels, was 
withheld from an experiment that could hardly 
have proved less than fatal to the beloved ob¬ 
ject of her anxiety. 

To be brief, besides Hepzibah’s disadvan¬ 
tages of person, there was an uncouthness per¬ 
vading all her deeds ; a clumsy something, that 
could but ill adapt itself for use, and not at 
all for ornament. She was a grief to Clifford, 
and she knew it. In this extremity, the anti¬ 
quated virgin turned to Phoebe. No grovel¬ 
ling jealousy was in her heart. Had it pleased 
Heaven to crown the heroic fidelity of her life 
195 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


by making her personally the medium of Clif¬ 
ford’s happiness, it would have rewarded her 
for all the past, by a joy with no bright tints, 
indeed, but deep and true, and worth a thou¬ 
sand gayer ecstasies. This could not be. She 
therefore turned to Phoebe, and resigned the 
task into the young girl’s hands. The latter 
took it up cheerfully, as she did everything, but 
with no sense of a mission to perform, and suc¬ 
ceeding all the better for that same simplicity. 

By the involuntary effect of a genial temper¬ 
ament, Phoebe soon grew to be absolutely es¬ 
sential to the daily comfort, if not the daily life, 
of her two forlorn companions. The grime and 
sordidness of the House of the Seven Gables 
seemed to have vanished since her appearance 
there; the gnawing tooth of the dry-rot was 
stayed among the old timbers of its skeleton 
frame; the dust had ceased to settle down so 
densely, from the antique ceilings, upon the 
floors and furniture of the rooms below, — or, 
at any rate, there was a little housewife, as light- 
footed as the breeze that sweeps a garden walk, 
gliding hither and thither to brush it all away. 
The shadows of gloomy events that haunted 
the else lonely and desolate apartments ; the 
heavy, breathless scent which death had left in 
more than one of the bedchambers, ever since 
his visits of long ago, — these were less pow¬ 
erful than the purifying influence scattered 
196 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 

throughout the atmosphere of the household 
by the presence of one youthful, fresh, and 
thoroughly wholesome heart. There was no 
morbidness in Phoebe; if there had been, the 
old Pyncheon House was the very locality to 
ripen it into incurable disease. But now her 
spirit resembled, in its potency, a minute 
quantity of ottar of rose in one of Hepzi- 
bah’s huge, iron-bound trunks, diffusing its fra¬ 
grance through the various articles of linen and 
wrought-lace, kerchiefs, caps, stockings, folded 
dresses, gloves, and whatever else was treasured 
there. As every article in the great trunk was 
the sweeter for the rose-scent, so did all the 
thoughts and emotions of Hepzibah and Clif¬ 
ford, sombre as they might seem, acquire a 
subtle attribute of happiness from Phoebe's 
intermixture with them. Her activity of body, 
intellect, and heart impelled her continually 
to perform the ordinary little toils that offered 
themselves around her, and to think the thought 
proper for the moment, and to sympathize,— 
now with the twittering gayety of the robins 
in the pear-tree, and now to such a depth as 
she could with Hepzibah's dark anxiety, or the 
vague moan of her brother. This facile adap¬ 
tation was at once the symptom of perfect 
health and its best preservative. 

A nature like Phoebe's has invariably its due 
influence, but is seldom regarded with due 
197 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


honor. Its spiritual force, however, may be 
partially estimated by the fact of her having 
found a place for herself, amid circumstances so 
stern as those which surrounded the mistress of 
the house; and also by the effect which she 
produced on a character of so much more mass 
than her own. For the gaunt, bony frame and 
limbs of Hepzibah, as compared with the tiny 
lightsomeness of Phoebe’s figure, were perhaps 
in some fit proportion with the moral weight 
and substance, respectively, of the woman and 
the girl. 

To the guest, — to Hepzibah’s brother,— 
or Cousin Clifford, as Phoebe now began to call 
him, — she was especially necessary. Not that 
he could ever be said to converse with her, or 
often manifest, in any other very definite mode, 
his sense of a charm in her society. But if 
she were a long while absent he became pettish 
and nervously restless, pacing the room to and 
fro with the uncertainty that characterized all 
his movements; or else would sit broodingly in 
his great chair, resting his head on his hands, 
and evincing life only by an electric sparkle of 
ill-humor, whenever Hepzibah endeavored to 
arouse him. Phoebe’s presence, and the con¬ 
tiguity of her fresh life to his blighted one, 
was usually all that he required. Indeed, such 
was the native gush and play of her spirit, that 
she was seldom perfectly quiet and undemon- 
198 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 


strative, any more than a fountain ever ceases 
to dimple and warble with its flow. She pos¬ 
sessed the gift of song, and that, too, so natu¬ 
rally, that you would as little think of inquir¬ 
ing whence she had caught it, or what master 
had taught her, as of asking the same questions 
about a bird, in whose small strain of music we 
recognize the voice of the Creator as distinctly 
as in the loudest accents of his thunder. So 
long as Phoebe sang, she might stray at her 
own will about the house. Clifford was con¬ 
tent, whether the sweet, airy homeliness of her 
tones came down from the upper chambers, or 
along the passageway from the shop, or was 
sprinkled through the foliage of the pear-tree, 
inward from the garden, with the twinkling sun¬ 
beams. He would sit quietly, with a gentle 
pleasure gleaming over his face, brighter now, 
and now a little dimmer, as the song happened 
to float near him, or was more remotely heard. 
It pleased him best, however, when she sat on a 
low footstool at his knee. 

It is perhaps remarkable, considering her 
temperament, that Phoebe oftener chose a strain 
of pathos than of gayety. But the young and 
happy are not ill pleased to temper their life 
with a transparent shadow. The deepest pathos 
of Phoebe's voice and song, moreover, came 
sifted through the golden texture of a cheery 
spirit, and was somehow so interfused with the 
199 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


quality thence acquired, that one’s heart felt all 
the lighter for having wept at it. Broad mirth, 
in the sacred presence of dark misfortune, 
would have jarred harshly and irreverently with 
the solemn symphony that rolled its undertone 
through Hepzibah’s and her brother’s life. 
Therefore, it was well that Phoebe so often 
chose sad themes, and not amiss that they 
ceased to be so sad while she was singing them. 

Becoming habituated to her companionship, 
Clifford readily showed how capable of imbib¬ 
ing pleasant tints and gleams of cheerful light 
from all quarters his nature must originally 
have been. He grew youthful while she sat by 
him. A beauty,— not precisely real, even in 
its utmost manifestation, and which a painter 
would have watched long to seize and fix upon 
his canvas, and, after all, in vain, — beauty, 
nevertheless, that was not a mere dream, would 
sometimes play upon and illuminate his face. 
It did more than to illuminate; it transfigured 
him with an expression that could only be inter¬ 
preted as the glow of an exquisite and happy 
spirit. That gray hair, and those furrows,— 
with their record of infinite sorrow so deeply 
written across his brow, and so compressed, as 
with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that 
the whole inscription was made illegible,— 
these, for the moment, vanished. An eye at 
once tender and acute might have beheld in 
200 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 


the man some shadow of what he was meant to 
be. Anon, as age came stealing, like a sad twi¬ 
light, back over his figure, you would have felt 
tempted to hold an argument with Destiny, and 
affirm, that either this being should not have 
been made mortal, or mortal existence should 
have been tempered to his qualities. There 
seemed no necessity for his having drawn 
breath at all ; the world never wanted him ; 
but, as he had breathed, it ought always to have 
been the balmiest of summer air. The same 
perplexity will invariably haunt us with regard 
to natures that tend to feed exclusively upon 
the Beautiful, let their earthly fate be as lenient 
as it may. 

Phoebe, it is probable, had but a very imper¬ 
fect comprehension of the character over which 
she had thrown so beneficent a spell. Nor was 
it necessary. The fire upon the hearth can 
gladden a whole semicircle of faces round about 
it, but need not know the individuality of one 
among them all. Indeed, there was something 
too fine and delicate in Clifford’s traits to be 
perfectly appreciated by one whose sphere lay 
so much in the Actual as Phoebe’s did. For 
Clifford, however, the reality, and simplicity, 
and thorough homeliness of the girl’s nature 
were as powerful a charm as any that she pos¬ 
sessed. Beauty, it is true, and beauty almost 
perfect in its own style, was indispensable. 

201 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

Had Phoebe been coarse in feature, shaped 
clumsily, of a harsh voice, and uncouthly man¬ 
nered, she might have been rich with all good 
gifts, beneath this unfortunate exterior, and still, 
so long as she wore the guise of woman, she 
would have shocked Clifford, and depressed 
him by her lack of beauty. But nothing more 
beautiful — nothing prettier, at least — was 
ever made than Phoebe. And, therefore, to 
this man, — whose whole poor and impalpable 
enjoyment of existence heretofore, and until 
both his heart and fancy died within him, had 
been a dream, — whose images of women had 
more and more lost their warmth and sub¬ 
stance, and been frozen, like the pictures of 
secluded artists, into the chillest ideality,— 
to him, this little figure of the cheeriest house¬ 
hold life was just what he required to bring him 
back into the breathing world. Persons who 
have wandered, or been expelled, out of the 
common track of things, even were it for a bet¬ 
ter system, desire nothing so much as to be led 
back. They shiver in their loneliness, be it on a 
mountain-top or in a dungeon. Now, Phoebe's 
presence made a home about her, — that very 
sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, the 
potentate, — the wretch beneath mankind, the 
wretch aside from it, or the wretch above it, — 
instinctively pines after, — a home ! She was 
real! Holding her hand, you felt something; 

202 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 


a tender something; a substance, and a warm 
one: and so long as you should feel its grasp, 
soft as it was, you might be certain that your 
place was good in the whole sympathetic chain 
of human nature. The world was no longer a 
delusion. 

By looking a little further in this direction, 
we might suggest an explanation of an often- 
suggested mystery. Why are poets so apt to 
choose their mates, not for any similarity of 
poetic endowment, but for qualities which might 
make the happiness of the rudest handicrafts¬ 
man as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the 
spirit ? Because, probably, at his highest ele¬ 
vation, the poet needs no human intercourse ; 
but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a 
stranger. 

There was something very beautiful in the re¬ 
lation that grew up between this pair, so closely 
and constantly linked together, yet with such 
a waste of gloomy and mysterious years from 
his birthday to hers. On Clifford’s part it was 
the feeling of a man naturally endowed with 
the liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, 
but who had never quaffed the cup of pas¬ 
sionate love, and knew that it was now too 
late. He knew it, with the instinctive delicacy 
that had survived his intellectual decay. Thus, 
his sentiment for Phoebe, without being pater¬ 
nal, was not less chaste than if she had been his 
203 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


daughter. He was a man, it is true, and recog¬ 
nized her as a woman. She was his only repre¬ 
sentative of womankind. He took unfailing 
note of every charm that appertained to her 
sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the 
virginal development of her bosom. All her 
little womanly ways, budding out of her like 
blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect 
on him, and sometimes caused his very heart to 
tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure. At 
such moments, — for the effect was seldom 
more than momentary, — the half-torpid man 
would be full of harmonious life, just as a long- 
silent harp is full of sound, when the musician’s 
fingers sweep across it. But, after all, it seemed 
rather a perception, or a sympathy, than a sen¬ 
timent belonging to himself as an individual. 
He read Phoebe as he would a sweet and sim¬ 
ple story ; h~ listened to her as if she were a 
verse of household poetry, which God, in re¬ 
quital of his bleak and dismal lot, had permit¬ 
ted some angel, that most pitied him, to warble 
through the house. She was not an actual fact 
for him, but the interpretation of all that he 
lacked on earth brought warmly home to his 
conception; so that this mere symbol, or life¬ 
like picture, had almost the comfort of reality. 

But we strive in vain to put the idea into 
words. No adequate expression of the beauty 
and profound pathos with which it impresses 
204 


CLIFFORD AND PHCEBE 


us is attainable. This being, made only for 
happiness, and heretofore so miserably failing 
to be happy, — his tendencies so hideously 
thwarted, that, some unknown time ago, the 
delicate springs of his character, never morally 
or intellectually strong, had given way, and he 
was now imbecile, — this poor, forlorn voyager 
from the Islands of the Blest, in a frail bark, 
on a tempestuous sea, had been flung, by the 
last mountain-wave of his shipwreck, into a 
quiet harbor. There, as he lay more than half 
lifeless on the strand, the fragrance of an earthly 
rosebud had come to his nostrils, and, as odors 
will, had summoned up reminiscences or visions 
of all the living and breathing beauty amid 
which he should have had his home. With 
his native susceptibility of happy influences, he 
inhales the slight, ethereal rapture into his soul, 
and expires ! 

And how did Phoebe regard Clifford ? The 
girFs was not one of those natures which are 
most attracted by what is strange and excep¬ 
tional in human character. The path which 
would best have suited her was the well-worn 
track of ordinary life ; the companions in whom 
she would most have delighted were such as 
one encounters at every turn. The mystery 
which enveloped Clifford, so far as it affected 
her at all, was an annoyance, rather than the 
piquant charm which many women might have 
205 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


found in it. Still, her native kindliness was 
brought strongly into play, not by what was 
darkly picturesque in his situation, nor so 
much, even, by the finer graces of his character, 
as by the simple appeal of a heart so forlorn as 
his to one so full of genuine sympathy as hers. 
She gave him an affectionate regard, because he 
needed so much love, and seemed to have re¬ 
ceived so little. With a ready tact, the result 
of ever-active and wholesome sensibility, she 
discerned what was good for him, and did it. 
Whatever was morbid in his mind and experi¬ 
ence she ignored ; and thereby kept their inter¬ 
course healthy, by the incautious, but, as it 
were, heaven-directed freedom of her whole 
conduct. The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in 
body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly 
so by the manifold reflection of their disease, 
mirrored back from all quarters in the deport¬ 
ment of those about them ; they are compelled 
to inhale the poison of their own breath, in 
infinite repetition. But Phoebe afforded her 
poor patient a supply of purer air. She impreg¬ 
nated it, too, not with a wild-flower scent, — 
for wildness was no trait of hers,— but with the 
perfume of garden-roses, pinks, and other blos¬ 
soms of much sweetness, which nature and man 
have consented together in making grow from 
summer to summer, and from century to cen¬ 
tury. Such a flower was Phoebe in her rela- 
206 


CLIFFORD AND PHOEBE 


tion with Clifford, and such the delight that he 
inhaled from her. 

Yet, it must be said, her petals sometimes 
drooped a little, in consequence of the heavy 
atmosphere about her. She grew more thought¬ 
ful than heretofore. Looking aside at Clif¬ 
ford’s face, and seeing the dim, unsatisfactory 
elegance and the intellect almost quenched, she 
would try to inquire what had been his life. 
Was he always thus? Had this veil been over 
him from his birth ? — this veil, under which far 
more of his spirit was hidden than revealed, 
and through which he so imperfectly discerned 
the actual world, — or was its gray texture 
woven of some dark calamity ? Phoebe loved 
no riddles, and would have been glad to escape 
the perplexity of this one. Nevertheless, there 
was so far a good result of her meditations on 
Clifford’s character, that, when her involuntary 
conjectures, together with the tendency of every 
strange circumstance to tell its own story, had 
gradually taught her the fact, it had no terrible 
effect upon her. Let the world have done him 
what vast wrong it might, she knew Cousin 
Clifford too well — or fancied so — ever to 
shudder at the touch of his thin, delicate fin- 
gers. 

Within a few days after the appearance of 
this remarkable inmate, the routine of life had 
established itself with a good deal of uniformity 
20 7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


in the old house of our narrative. In the 
morning, very shortly after breakfast, it was 
Clifford’s custom to fall asleep in his chair; 
nor, unless accidentally disturbed, would he 
emerge from a dense cloud of slumber or the 
thinner mists that flitted to and fro, until well 
towards noonday. These hours of drowsi- 
head were the season of the old gentlewoman’s 
attendance on her brother, while Phoebe took 
charge of the shop ; an arrangement which the 
public speedily understood, and evinced their 
decided preference of the younger shopwoman 
by the multiplicity of their calls during her ad¬ 
ministration of affairs. Dinner over, Hepzibah 
took her knitting-work, — a long stocking of 
gray yarn, for her brother’s winter wear, — and 
with a sigh, and a scowl of affectionate farewell 
to Clifford, and a gesture enjoining watchful¬ 
ness on Phoebe, went to take her seat behind 
the counter. It was now the young girl’s turn 
to be the nurse, — the guardian, the playmate, 
— or whatever is the fitter phrase, — of the 
gray-haired man. 


208 


X 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


LIFFORD, except for Phoebe's more 



active instigation, would ordinarily have 


yielded to the torpor which had crept 
through all his modes of being, and which slug¬ 
gishly counselled him to sit in his morning 
chair till eventide. But the girl seldom failed to 
propose a removal to the garden, where Uncle 
Venner and the daguerreotypist had made such 
repairs on the roof of the ruinous arbor, or 
summer-house, that it was now a sufficient shel¬ 
ter from sunshine and casual showers. The 
hop-vine, too, had begun to grow luxuriantly 
over the sides of the little edifice, and made 
an interior of verdant seclusion, with innumer¬ 
able peeps and glimpses into the wider solitude 
of the garden. 

Here, sometimes, in this green play-place of 
flickering light, Phoebe read to Clifford. Her 
acquaintance, the artist, who appeared to have 
a literary turn, had supplied her with works of 
fiction, in pamphlet form, and a few volumes 
of poetry, in altogether a different style and 


209 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


taste from those which Hepzibah selected for 
his amusement. Small thanks were due to the 
books, however, if the girl’s readings were in 
any degree more successful than her elderly 
cousin’s. Phoebe’s voice had always a pretty 
music in it, and could either enliven Clifford 
by its sparkle and gayety of tone, or soothe 
him by a continued flow of pebbly and brook¬ 
like cadences. But the fictions — in which the 
country girl, unused to works of that nature, 
often became deeply absorbed — interested her 
strange auditor very little, or not at all. Pictures 
of life, scenes of passion or sentiment, wit, 
humor, and pathos, were all thrown away, or 
worse than thrown away, on Clifford ; either 
because he lacked an experience by which to 
test their truth, or because his own griefs were 
a touchstone of reality that few feigned emo¬ 
tions could withstand. When Phoebe broke 
into a peal of merry laughter at what she read, 
he would now and then laugh for sympathy, 
but oftener respond with a troubled, question¬ 
ing look. If a tear — a maiden’s sunshiny tear 
over imaginary woe — dropped upon some mel¬ 
ancholy page, Clifford either took it as a 
token of actual calamity, or else grew peevish, 
and angrily motioned her to close the volume. 
And wisely too ! Is not the world sad enough, 
in genuine earnest, without making a pastime 
of mock sorrows ? 


210 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


With poetry it was rather better. He de¬ 
lighted in the swell and subsidence of the 
rhythm, and the happily recurring rhyme. Nor 
was Clifford incapable of feeling the sentiment 
of poetry, — not, perhaps, where it was highest 
or deepest, but where it was most flitting and 
ethereal. It was impossible to foretell in what 
exquisite verse the awakening spell might lurk ; 
but, on raising her eyes from the page to Clif¬ 
ford’s face, Phoebe would be made aware, by 
the light breaking through it, that a more deli¬ 
cate intelligence than her own had caught a 
lambent flame from what she read. One glow 
of this kind, however, was often the precursor 
of gloom for many hours afterward ; because, 
when the glow left him, he seemed conscious of 
a missing sense and power, and groped about for 
them, as if a blind man should go seeking his 
lost eyesight. 

It pleased him more, and was better for his 
inward welfare, that Phoebe should talk, and 
make passing occurrences vivid to his mind 
by her accompanying description and remarks. 
The life of the garden offered topics enough 
for such discourse as suited Clifford best. He 
never failed to inquire what flowers had bloomed 
since yesterday. His feeling for flowers was 
very exquisite, and seemed not so much a taste 
as an emotion ; he was fond of sitting with one 
in his hand, intently observing it, and looking 
211 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GAELES 


from its petals into Phoebe's face, as if the 
garden flower were the sister of the household 
maiden. Not merely was there a delight in 
the flower's perfume, or pleasure in its beauti¬ 
ful form, and the delicacy or brightness of its 
hue ; but Clifford’s enjoyment was accompanied 
with a perception of life, character, and individ¬ 
uality, that made him love these blossoms of 
the garden, as if they were endowed with senti¬ 
ment and intelligence. This affection and sym¬ 
pathy for flowers is almost exclusively a woman's 
trait. Men, if endowed with it by nature, soon 
lose, forget, and learn to despise it, in their con¬ 
tact with coarser things than flowers. Clifford, 
too, had long forgotten it; but found it again 
now, as he slowly revived from the chill torpor 
of his life. 

It is wonderful how many pleasant incidents 
continually came to pass in that secluded gar¬ 
den spot when once Phoebe had set herself to 
look for them. She had seen or heard a bee 
there, on the first day of her acquaintance with 
the place. And often, — almost continually, 
indeed, — since then, the bees kept coming 
thither. Heaven knows why, or by what per¬ 
tinacious desire, for far-fetched sweets, when, 
no doubt, there were broad clover-fields, and 
all kinds of garden growth, much nearer home 
than this. Thither the bees came, however, 
and plunged into the squash blossoms, as if 
212 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 

there were no other squash-vines within a long 
day’s flight, or as if the soil of Hepzibah’s gar¬ 
den gave its productions just the very quality 
which these laborious little wizards wanted, in 
order to impart the Hymettus odor to their 
whole hive of New England honey. When 
Clifford heard their sunny, buzzing murmur, 
in the heart of the great yellow blossoms, he 
looked about him with a joyful sense of warmth, 
and blue sky, and green grass, and of God’s 
free air in the whole height from earth to hea¬ 
ven. After all, there need be no question why 
the bees came to that one green nook in the 
dusty town. God sent them thither to gladden 
our poor Clifford. They brought the rich sum¬ 
mer with them, in requital of a little honey. 

When the bean-vines began to flower on the 
poles, there was one particular variety which 
bore a vivid scarlet blossom. The daguerreo- 
typist had found these beans in a garret, over 
one of the seven gables, treasured up in an old 
chest of drawers by some horticultural Pyn- 
cheon of days gone by, who doubtless meant 
to sow them the next summer, but was himself 
first sown in Death’s garden ground. By way 
of testing whether there were still a living germ 
in such ancient seeds, Holgrave had planted 
some of them ; and the result of his experiment 
was a splendid row of bean-vines, clambering, 
early, to the full height of the poles, and array- 
213 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ing them, from top to bottom, in a spiral pro¬ 
fusion of red blossoms. And, ever since the 
unfolding of the first bud, a multitude of hum¬ 
ming-birds had been attracted thither. At 
times, it seemed as if for every one of the hun¬ 
dred blossoms there was one of these tiniest 
fowls of the air, — a thumb’s bigness of bur¬ 
nished plumage, hovering and vibrating about 
the beanpoles. It was with indescribable in¬ 
terest, and even more than childish delight, 
that Clifford watched the humming-birds. He 
used to thrust his head softly out of the arbor to 
see them the better; all the while, too, motion¬ 
ing Phoebe to be quiet, and snatching glimpses 
of the smile upon her face, so as to heap his 
enjoyment up the higher with her sympathy. 
He had not merely grown young; — he was a 
child again. 

Hepzibah, whenever she happened to witness 
one of these fits of miniature enthusiasm, would 
shake her head, with a strange mingling of the 
mother and sister, and of pleasure and sadness, 
in her aspect. She said that it had always been 
thus with Clifford when the humming-birds 
came, — always, from his babyhood, — and 
that his delight in them had been one of the 
earliest tokens by which he showed his love for 
beautiful things. And it was a wonderful coin¬ 
cidence, the good lady thought, that the artist 
should have planted these scarlet-flowering 
214 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


beans — which the humming-birds sought far 
and wide, and which had not grown in the Pyn- 
cheon garden before for forty years — on the 
very summer of Clifford’s return. 

Then would the tears stand in poor Hepzi- 
bah’s eyes, or overflow them with a too abun¬ 
dant gush, so that she was fain to betake her¬ 
self into some corner, lest Clifford should espy 
her agitation. Indeed, all the enjoyments of 
this period were provocative of tears. Coming 
so late as it did, it was a kind of Indian sum¬ 
mer, with v a mist in its balmiest sunshine, and 
decay and death in its gaudiest delight. The 
more Clifford seemed to taste the happiness of 
a child, the sadder was the difference to be re¬ 
cognized. With a mysterious and terrible Past, 
which had annihilated his memory, and a blank 
Future before him, he had only this visionary 
and impalpable Now, which, if you once look 
closely at it, is nothing. He himself, as was 
perceptible by many symptoms, lay darkly be¬ 
hind his pleasure, and knew it to be a baby- 
play, which he was to toy and trifle with, instead 
of thoroughly believing. Clifford saw, it may 
be, in the mirror of his deeper consciousness, 
that he was an example and representative of 
that great class of people whom an inexplicable 
Providence is continually putting at cross-pur¬ 
poses with the world : breaking what seems its 
own promise in their nature ; withholding their 
215 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


proper food, and setting poison before them for 
a banquet; and thus — when it might so easily, 
as one would think, have been adjusted other¬ 
wise— making their existence a strangeness, a 
solitude, and torment. All his life long, he 
had been learning how to be wretched, as one 
learns a foreign tongue; and now, with the 
lesson thoroughly by heart, he could with diffi¬ 
culty comprehend his little airy happiness. 
Frequently there was a dim shadow of doubt in 
his eyes. “ Take my hand, Phoebe,” he would 
say, “ and pinch it hard with your little fingers! 
Give me a rose, that I may press its thorns, 
and prove myself awake by the sharp touch of 
pain ! ” Evidently, he desired this prick of a 
trifling anguish, in order to assure himself, by 
that quality which he best knew to be real, that 
the garden, and the seven weather-beaten gables, 
and Hepzibah’s scowl, and Phoebe’s smile, were 
real likewise. Without this signet in his flesh, 
he could have attributed no more substance to 
them than to the empty confusion of imaginary 
scenes with which he had fed his spirit, until 
even that poor sustenance was exhausted. 

The author needs great faith in his reader’s 
sympathy; else he must hesitate to give details 
so minute, and incidents apparently so trifling, 
as are essential to make up the idea of this gar¬ 
den life. It was the Eden of a thunder-smitten 
Adam, who had fled for refuge thither out of 
216 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 

the same dreary and perilous wilderness into 
which the original Adam was expelled. 

One of the available means of amusement, 
of which Phoebe made the most in Clifford’s 
behalf, was that feathered society, the hens, a 
breed of whom, as we have already said, was an 
immemorial heirloom in the Pyncheon family. 
In- compliance with a whim of Clifford, as it 
troubled him to see them in confinement, they 
had been s$t at liberty, and now roamed at will 
about the garden ; doing some little mischief, 
but hindered from escape by buildings on three 
sides, and the difficult peaks of a wooden fence 
on the other. They spent much of their abun¬ 
dant leisure on the margin of Maule’s well, 
which was haunted by a kind of snail, evidently 
a titbit to their palates ; and the brackish water 
itself, however nauseous to the rest of the 
world, was so greatly esteemed by these fowls, 
that they might be seen tasting, turning up 
their heads, and smacking their bills, with pre¬ 
cisely the air of wine-bibbers round a proba¬ 
tionary cask. Their generally quiet, yet often 
brisk, and constantly diversified talk, one to 
another, or sometimes in soliloquy, — as they 
scratched worms out of the rich, black soil, or 
pecked at such plants as suited their taste,— 
had such a domestic tone, that it was almost a 
wonder why you could not establish a regular 
interchange of ideas about household matters, 
217 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


human and gallinaceous. All hens are well 
worth studying for the piquancy and rich va¬ 
riety of their manners ; but by no possibility 
can there have been other fowls of such odd 
appearance and deportment as these ancestral 
ones. They probably embodied the tradition¬ 
ary peculiarities of their whole line of progeni¬ 
tors, derived through an unbroken succession 
of eggs ; or else this individual Chanticleer and 
his two wives had grown to be humorists, and 
a little crack-brained withal, on account of their 
solitary way of life, and out of sympathy for 
Hepzibah, their lady patroness. 

Queer, indeed, they looked ! Chanticleer 
himself, though stalking on two stilt-like legs, 
with the dignity of interminable descent in all 
his gestures, was hardly bigger than an ordi¬ 
nary partridge; his two wives were about the 
size of quails ; and as for the one chicken, it 
looked small enough to be still in the egg, and, 
at the same time, sufficiently old, withered, wiz¬ 
ened, and experienced, to have been the founder 
of the antiquated race. Instead of being the 
youngest of the family, it rather seemed to 
have aggregated into itself the ages, not only 
of these living specimens of the breed, but of 
all its forefathers and foremothers, whose united 
excellences and oddities were squeezed into its 
little body. Its mother evidently regarded it 
as the one chicken of the world, and as neces- 
218 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


sary, in fact, to the world's continuance, or, at 
any rate, to the equilibrium of the present sys¬ 
tem of affairs, whether in church or state. No 
lesser sense of the infant fowl’s importance 
could have justified, even in a mother’s eyes, 
the perseverance with which she watched over 
its safety, ruffling her small person to twice its 
proper size, and flying in everybody’s face that 
so much as looked towards her hopeful pro¬ 
geny. No lower estimate could have vindicated 
the indefatigable zeal with which she scratched, 
and her unscrupulousness in digging up the 
choicest flower or vegetable, for the sake of the 
fat earthworm at its root. Her nervous cluck, 
when the chicken happened to be hidden in 
the long grass or under the squash leaves ; her 
gentle croak of satisfaction, while sure of it 
beneath her wing ; her note of ill-concealed fear 
and obstreperous defiance, when she saw her 
arch-enemy, a neighbor’s cat, on the top of the 
high fence, — one or other of these sounds was 
to be heard at almost every moment of the day. 
By degrees, the observer came to feel nearly as 
much interest in this chicken of illustrious race 
as the mother hen did. 

Phoebe, after getting well acquainted with the 
old hen, was sometimes permitted to take the 
chicken in her hand, which was quite capable 
of grasping its cubic inch or two of body. 
While she curiously examined its hereditary 
219 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


marks, — the peculiar speckle of its plumage, the 
funny tuft on its head, and a knob on each of 
its legs, — the little biped, as she insisted, kept 
giving her a sagacious wink. The daguerre- 
otypist once whispered her that these marks 
betokened the oddities of the Pyncheon family, 
and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the 
life of the old house, embodying its interpreta¬ 
tion, likewise, although an unintelligible one, as 
such clews generally are. It was a feathered 
riddle ; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and 
just as mysterious as if the egg had been addle ! 

The second of Chanticleer’s two wives, ever 
since Phoebe’s arrival, had been in a state of 
heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards 
appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One 
day, however, by her self-important gait, the 
sideways turn of her head, and the cock of her 
eye, as she pried into one and another nook of 
the garden, — croaking to herself, all the while, 
with inexpressible complacency, — it was made 
evident that this identical hen, much as man¬ 
kind undervalued her, carried something about 
her person the worth of which was not to be 
estimated either in gold or precious stones. 
Shortly after, there was a prodigious cackling 
and gratulation of Chanticleer and all his family, 
including the wizened chicken, who appeared to 
understand the matter quite as well as did his 
sire, his mother, or his aunt. That afternoon 
220 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


Phoebe found a diminutive egg, — not in the 
regular nest, it was far too precious to be trusted 
there, — but cunningly hidden under the cur¬ 
rant bushes, on some dry stalks of last year’s 
grass. Hepzibah, on learning the fact, took 
possession of the egg and appropriated it to 
Clifford’s breakfast, on account of a certain 
delicacy of flavor, for which, as she affirmed, 
these eggs had always been famous. Thus un¬ 
scrupulously did the old gentlewoman sacrifice 
the continuance, perhaps, of an ancient feath¬ 
ered race, with no better end than to supply 
her brother with a dainty that hardly filled the 
bowl of a teaspoon ! It must have been in 
reference to this outrage that Chanticleer, the 
next day, accompanied by the bereaved mother 
of the egg, took his post in front of Phoebe and 
Clifford, and delivered himself of a harangue 
that might have proved as long as his own ped¬ 
igree, but for a fit of merriment on Phoebe’s 
part. Hereupon, the offended fowl stalked 
away on his long stilts, and utterly withdrew 
his notice from Phoebe and the rest of human 
nature, until she made her peace with an offer¬ 
ing of spice-cake, which, next to snails, was the 
delicacy most in favor with his aristocratic taste. 

We linger too long, no doubt, beside this 
paltry rivulet of life that flowed through the 
garden of the Pyncheon House. But we deem 
it pardonable to record these mean incidents 
221 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and poor delights, because they proved so 
greatly to Clifford’s benefit. They had the 
earth-smell in them, and contributed to give 
him health and substance. Some of his occu¬ 
pations wrought less desirably upon him. He 
had a singular propensity, for example, to hang 
over Maule’s well, and look at the constantly 
shifting phantasmagoria of figures produced by 
the agitation of the water over the mosaic-work 
of colored pebbles at the bottom. He said that 
faces looked upward to him there, — beautiful 
faces, arrayed in bewitching smiles, — each mo¬ 
mentary face so fair and rosy, and every smile 
so sunny, that he felt wronged at its departure, 
until the same flitting witchcraft made a new 
one. But sometimes he would suddenly cry 
out, “ The dark face gazes at me ! ” and be mis¬ 
erable the whole day afterwards. Phoebe, when 
she hung over the fountain by Clifford’s side, 
could see nothing of all this, — neither the 
beauty nor the ugliness, — but only the colored 
pebbles, looking as if the gush of the waters 
shook and disarranged them. And the dark 
face, that so troubled Clifford, was no more 
than the shadow thrown from a branch of one 
of the damson-trees, and breaking the inner 
light of Maule’s well. The truth was, how¬ 
ever, that his fancy — reviving faster than his 
will and judgment, and always stronger than 
they — created shapes of loveliness that were 
222 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


symbolic of his native character, and now and 
then a stern and dreadful shape that typified 
his fate. 

On Sundays, after Phoebe had been at church, 
— for the girl had a church-going conscience, 
and would hardly have been at ease had she 
missed either prayer, singing, sermon, or bene¬ 
diction, — after church-time, therefore, there 
was, ordinarily, a sober little festival in the 
garden. In addition to Clifford, Hepzibah, and 
Phoebe, two guests made up the company. One 
was the artist Holgrave, who, in spite of his con¬ 
sociation with reformers, and his other queer and 
questionable traits, continued to hold an ele¬ 
vated place in Hepzibah’s regard. The other, 
we are almost ashamed to say, was the venera¬ 
ble Uncle Venner, in a clean shirt, and a broad¬ 
cloth coat, more respectable than his ordinary 
wear, inasmuch as it was neatly patched on each 
elbow, and might be called an entire garment, 
except for a slight inequality in the length of 
its skirts. Clifford, on several occasions, had 
seemed to enjoy the old man’s intercourse, for 
the sake of his mellow, cheerful vein, which was 
like the sweet flavor of a frost-bitten apple, such 
as one picks up under the tree in December. 
A man at the very lowest point of the social 
scale was easier and more agreeable for the 
fallen gentleman to encounter than a person 
at any of the intermediate degrees ; and, more- 
223 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


over, as Clifford’s young manhood had been 
lost, he was fond of feeling himself compara¬ 
tively youthful, now, in apposition with the 
patriarchal age of Uncle Venner. In fact, it 
was sometimes observable that Clifford half 
wilfully hid from himself the consciousness of 
being stricken in years, and cherished visions 
of an earthly future still before him; visions, 
however, too indistinctly drawn to be followed 
by disappointment — though, doubtless, by 
depression — when any casual incident or recol¬ 
lection made him sensible of the withered leaf. 

So this oddly composed little social party used 
to assemble under the ruinous arbor. Hepzi- 
bah — stately as ever at heart, and yielding not 
an inch of her old gentility, but resting upon 
it so much the more, as justifying a princess¬ 
like condescension — exhibited a not ungraceful 
hospitality. She talked kindly to the vagrant 
artist, and took sage counsel — lady as she was 
— with the wood-sawyer, the messenger of 
everybody’s petty errands, the patched philoso¬ 
pher. And Uncle Venner, who had studied the 
world at street corners, and other posts equally 
well adapted for just observation, was as ready 
to give out his wisdom as a town-pump to give 
water. 

cc Miss Hepzibah, ma’am,” said he once, 
after they had all been cheerful together, “ I 
really enjoy these quiet little meetings of a Sab- 
224 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


bath afternoon. They are very much like what 
I expect to have after I retire to my farm ! ” 

“ Uncle Venner,” observed Clifford in a 
drowsy, inward tone, “ is always talking about 
his farm. But I have a better scheme for him, 
by and by. We shall see ! ” 

“ Ah, Mr. Clifford Pyncheon !” said the man 
of patches, “ you may scheme for me as much 
as you please ; but I ’m not going to give up 
this one scheme of my own, even if 1 never 
bring it really to pass. It does seem to me that 
men make a wonderful mistake in trying to 
heap up property upon property. If I had 
done so, I should feel as if Providence was not 
bound to take care of me ; and, at all events, 
the city would n’t be ! I’m one of those peo¬ 
ple who think that infinity is big enough for us 
all — and eternity long enough.” 

“ Why, so they are. Uncle Venner,” re¬ 
marked Phoebe after a pause ; for she had been 
trying to fathom the profundity and apposite¬ 
ness of this concluding apothegm. “ But for 
this short life of ours, one would like a house 
and a moderate garden spot of one’s own.” 

“It appears to me,” said the daguerreotypist, 
smiling, “ that Uncle Venner has the principles 
of Fourier at the bottom of his wisdom ; only 
they have not quite so much distinctness in his 
mind as in that of the systematizing French¬ 
man.” 


225 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Come, Phoebe,” said Hepzibah, “it is time 
to bring the currants.” 

And then, while the yellow richness of the 
declining sunshine still fell into the open space 
of the garden, Phoebe brought out a loaf of 
bread and a china bowl of currants, freshly 
gathered from the bushes, and crushed with 
sugar. These, with water, — but not from the 
fountain of ill omen, close at hand, — consti¬ 
tuted all the entertainment. Meanwhile, Hol- 
grave took some pains to establish an intercourse 
with Clifford, actuated, it might seem, entirely 
by an impulse of kindliness, in order that the 
present hour might be cheerfuller than most 
which the poor recluse had spent, or was des¬ 
tined yet to spend. Nevertheless, in the artist’s 
deep, thoughtful, all-observant eyes, there was, 
now and then, an expression, not sinister, but 
questionable ; as if he had some other interest 
in the scene than a stranger, a youthful and 
unconnected adventurer, might be supposed to 
have. With great mobility of outward mood, 
however, he applied himself to the task of en¬ 
livening the party ; and with so much success, 
that even dark-hued Hepzibah threw off one 
tint of melancholy, and made what shift she 
could with the remaining portion. Phoebe said 
to herself, — <c How pleasant he can be ! ” As 
for Uncle Venner, as a mark of friendship and 
approbation, he readily consented to afford the 
226 


THE PYNCHEON GARDEN 


young man his countenance in the way of his 
profession, — not metaphorically, be it under¬ 
stood, but literally, by allowing a daguerreotype 
of his face, so familiar to the town, to be exhib¬ 
ited at the entrance of Holgrave's studio. 

Clifford, as the company partook of their lit¬ 
tle banquet, grew to be the gayest of them all. 
Either it was one of those up-quivering flashes 
of the spirit, to which minds in an abnormal 
state are liable, or else the artist had subtly 
touched some chord that made musical vibra¬ 
tion. Indeed, what with the pleasant summer 
evening, and the sympathy of this little circle 
of not unkindly souls, it was perhaps natural 
that a character so susceptible as Clifford's 
should become animated, and show itself readily 
responsive to what was said around him. But 
he gave out his own thoughts, likewise, with an 
airy and fanciful glow; so that they glistened, 
as it were, through the arbor, and made their 
escape among the interstices of the foliage. He 
had been as cheerful, no doubt, while alone with 
Phoebe, but never with such tokens of acute, 
although partial intelligence. 

But, as the sunlight left the peaks of the 
Seven Gables, so did the excitement fade out of 
Clifford's eyes. He gazed vaguely and mourn¬ 
fully about him, as if he missed something pre¬ 
cious, and missed it the more drearily for not 
knowing precisely what it was. 

227 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ I want my happiness ! ” at last he mur¬ 
mured hoarsely and indistinctly, hardly shaping 
out the words. “ Many, many years have I 
waited for it! It is late ! It is late ! I want 
my happiness ! ” 

Alas, poor Clifford ! You are old, and worn 
with troubles that ought never to have befallen 
you. You are partly crazy and partly imbecile ; 
a ruin, a failure, as almost everybody is, — 
though some in less degree, or less perceptibly, 
than their fellows. Fate has no happiness in 
store for you ; unless your quiet home in the 
old family residence with the faithful Hepzibah, 
and your long summer afternoons with Phoebe, 
and these Sabbath festivals with Uncle Venner 
and the daguerreotypist, deserve to be called 
happiness ! Why not? If not the thing itself, 
it is marvellously like it, and the more so for that 
ethereal and intangible quality which causes it 
all to vanish at too close an introspection. Take 
it, therefore, while you may ! Murmur not,— 
question not, — but make the most of it! 

228 


XI 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 

F ROM the inertness, or what we may term 
the vegetative character, of his ordinary 
mood, Clifford would perhaps have been 
content to spend one day after another, inter¬ 
minably, — or, at least, throughout the summer¬ 
time, — in just the kind of life described in the 
preceding pages. Fancying, however, that it 
might be for his benefit occasionally to diver¬ 
sify the scene, Phoebe sometimes suggested that 
he should look out upon the life of the street. 
For this purpose, they used to mount the stair¬ 
case together, to the second story of the house, 
where, at the termination of a wide entry, there 
was an arched window, of uncommonly large 
dimensions, shaded by a pair of curtains. It 
opened above the porch, where there had for¬ 
merly been a balcony, the balustrade of which 
had long since gone to decay, and been re¬ 
moved. At this arched window, throwing it 
open, but keeping himself in comparative ob¬ 
scurity by means of the curtain, Clifford had an 
opportunity of witnessing such a portion of the 
great world’s movement as might be supposed 
229 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to roll through one of the retired streets of a 
not very populous city. But he and Phoebe 
made a sight as well worth seeing as any that 
the city could exhibit. The pale, gray, child¬ 
ish, aged, melancholy, yet often simply cheerful, 
and sometimes delicately intelligent aspect of 
Clifford, peering from behind the faded crim¬ 
son of the curtain, — watching the monotony 
of every-day occurrences with a kind of incon¬ 
sequential interest and earnestness, and, at every 
petty throb of his sensibility, turning for sym¬ 
pathy to the eyes of the bright young girl ! 

If once he were fairly seated at the window, 
even Pyncheon Street would hardly be so dull 
and lonely but that, somewhere or other along 
its extent, Clifford might discover matter to 
occupy his eye, and titillate, if not engross, his 
observation. Things familiar to the youngest 
child that had begun its outlook at existence 
seemed strange to him. A cab ; an omnibus, 
with its populous interior, dropping here and 
there a passenger, and picking up another, and 
thus typifying that vast rolling vehicle, the 
world, the end of whose journey is everywhere 
and nowhere ; these objects he followed eagerly 
with his eyes, but forgot them before the dust 
raised by the horses and wheels had settled 
along their track. As regarded novelties (among 
which cabs and omnibuses were to be reckoned), 
his mind appeared to have lost its proper gripe 
230 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


and retentiveness. Twice or thrice, for exam¬ 
ple, during the sunny hours of the day, a water- 
cart went along by the Pyncheon House, leav¬ 
ing a broad wake of moistened earth, instead of 
the white dust that had risen at a lady's lightest 
footfall; it was like a summer shower, which 
the city authorities had caught and tamed, and 
compelled it into the commonest routine of 
their convenience. With the water-cart Clifford 
could never grow familiar ; it always affected 
him with just the same surprise as at first. His 
mind took an apparently sharp impression from 
it, but lost the recollection of this perambula- 
tory shower, before its next reappearance, as 
completely as did the street itself, along which 
the heat so quickly strewed white dust again. 
It was the same with the railroad. Clifford 
could hear the obstreperous howl of the steam- 
devil, and, by leaning a little way from the 
arched window, could catch a glimpse of the 
trains of cars, flashing a brief transit across the 
extremity of the street. The idea of terrible 
energy thus forced upon him was new at every 
recurrence, and seemed to affect him as disa¬ 
greeably, and with almost as much surprise, the 
hundreth time as the first. 

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than 
this loss or suspension of the power to deal 
with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with 
the swiftness of the passing moment. It can 
231 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


merely be a suspended animation ; for, were the 
power actually to perish, there would be little 
use of immortality. We are less than ghosts, 
for the time being, whenever this calamity 
befalls us. 

Clifford was indeed the most inveterate of 
conservatives. All the antique fashions of the 
street were dear to him ; even such as were 
characterized by a rudeness that would naturally 
have annoyed his fastidious senses. He loved 
the old rumbling and jolting carts, the former 
track of which he still found in his long-buried 
remembrance, as the observer of to-day finds 
the wheel-tracks of ancient vehicles in Hercu¬ 
laneum. The butcher’s cart, with its snowy 
canopy, was an acceptable object; so was the 
fish-cart, heralded by its horn ; so, likewise, was 
the countryman’s cart of vegetables, plodding 
from door to door, with long pauses of the 
patient horse, while his owner drove a trade in 
turnips, carrots, summer squashes, string-beans, 
green peas, and new potatoes, with half the 
housewives of the neighborhood. The baker’s 
cart, with the harsh music of its bells, had a 
pleasant effect on Clifford, because, as few 
things else did, it jingled the very dissonance of 
yore. One afternoon a scissor-grinder chanced 
to set his wheel a-going under the Pyncheon 
Elm, and just in front of the arched window. 
Children came running with their mothers’ 
232 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


scissors, or the carving-knife, or the paternal 
razor, or anything else that lacked an edge 
(except, indeed, poor Clifford’s wits), that the 
grinder might apply the article to his magic 
wheel, and give it back as good as new. Round 
went the busily revolving machinery, kept in 
motion by the scissor-grinder’s foot, and wore 
away the hard steel against the hard stone, 
whence issued an intense and spiteful pro¬ 
longation of a hiss as fierce as those emitted 
by Satan and his compeers in Pandemonium, 
though squeezed into smaller compass. It was 
an ugly, little, venomous serpent of a noise, as 
ever did petty violence to human ears. But 
Clifford listened with rapturous delight. The 
sound, however disagreeable, had very brisk 
life in it, and, together with the circle of curi¬ 
ous children watching the revolutions of the 
wheel, appeared to give him a more vivid sense 
of active, bustling, and sunshiny existence than 
he had attained in almost any other way. Nev¬ 
ertheless, its charm lay chiefly in the past; 
for the scissor-grinder’s wheel had hissed in his 
childish ears. 

He sometimes made doleful complaint that 
there were no stage-coaches nowadays. And he 
asked in an injured tone what had become of 
all those old square-topped chaises, with wings 
sticking out on either side, that used to be 
drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a 
233 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

farmer’s wife and daughter, peddling whortle¬ 
berries and blackberries about the town. Their 
disappearance made him doubt, he said, whether 
the berries had not left off growing in the 
broad pastures and along the shady country 
lanes. 

But anything that appealed to the sense of 
beauty, in however humble a way, did not re¬ 
quire to be recommended by these old associa¬ 
tions. This was observable when one of those 
Italian boys (who are rather a modern feature 
of our streets) came along with his barrel-organ, 
and stopped under the wide and cool shadows 
of the elm. With his quick professional eye 
he took note of the two faces watching him 
from the arched window, and, opening his in¬ 
strument, began to scatter its melodies abroad. 
He had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed in 
a Highland plaid; and, to complete the sum 
of splendid attractions wherewith he presented 
himself to the public, there was a company of 
little figures, whose sphere and habitation was 
in the mahogany case of his organ, and whose 
principle of life was the music which the Italian 
made it his business to grind out. In all their 
variety of occupation, — the cobbler, the black¬ 
smith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the 
toper with his bottle, the milkmaid sitting by 
her cow, — this fortunate little society might 
truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, 
234 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 

and to make life literally a dance. The Italian 
turned a crank; and, behold! every one of 
these small individuals started into the most 
curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought upon 
a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron; 
the soldier waved his glittering blade ; the lady 
raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly 
toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar 
opened his book with eager thirst for know¬ 
ledge, and turned his head to and fro along 
the page; the milkmaid energetically drained 
her cow; and a miser counted gold into his 
strong-box, — all at the same turning of a 
crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same 
impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her 
lips ! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and 
bitter, had desired to signify, in this panto¬ 
mimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our 
business or amusement, — however serious, 
however trifling, — all dance to one identical 
tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, 
bring nothing finally to pass. For the most 
remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the 
cessation of the music, everybody was petrified, 
at once, from the most extravagant life into a 
dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe 
finished, nor the blacksmith’s iron shaped out; 
nor was there a drop less of brandy in the to¬ 
per’s bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the 
milkmaid’s pail, nor one additional coin in the 
235 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


miser's strong-box, nor was the scholar a page 
deeper in his book. All were precisely in the 
same condition as before they made themselves 
so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, 
to accumulate gold, and to become wise. Sad¬ 
dest of all, moreover, the lover was none the 
happier for the maiden's granted kiss! But, 
rather than swallow this last too acrid ingredi¬ 
ent, we reject the whole moral of the show. 

The monkey, meanwhile, with a thick tail 
curling out into preposterous prolixity from 
beneath his tartans, took his station at the Ital¬ 
ian's feet. He turned a wrinkled and abomi¬ 
nable little visage to every passer-by, and to 
the circle of children that soon gathered round, 
and to Hepzibah's shop-door, and upward 
to the arched window, whence Phoebe and 
Clifford were looking down. Every moment, 
also, he took off his Highland bonnet, and 
performed a bow and scrape. Sometimes, 
moreover, he made personal application to in¬ 
dividuals, holding out his small black palm, 
and otherwise plainly signifying his exces¬ 
sive desire for whatever filthy lucre might hap¬ 
pen to be in anybody's pocket. The mean 
and low, yet strangely man-like expression of 
his wilted countenance ; the prying and crafty 
glance, that showed him ready to gripe at every 
miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too 
enormous to be decently concealed under his 
236 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 

gabardine), and the deviltry of nature which 
it betokened, — take this monkey just as he 
was, in short, and you could desire no better 
image of the Mammon of copper coin, symbol¬ 
izing the grossest form of the love of money. 
Neither was there any possibility of satisfying 
the covetous little devil. Phoebe threw down 
a whole handful of cents, which he picked up 
with joyless eagerness, handed them over to 
the Italian for safekeeping, and immediately 
recommenced a series of pantomimic petitions 
for more. 

Doubtless, more than one New Englander 
— or, let him be of what country he might, it 
is as likely to be the case — passed by, and 
threw a look at the monkey, and went on, 
without imagining how nearly his own moral 
condition was here exemplified. Clifford, how¬ 
ever, was a being of another order. He had 
taken childish delight in the music, and smiled, 
too, at the figures which it set in motion. But, 
after looking awhile at the long-tailed imp, he 
was so shocked by his horrible ugliness, spirit¬ 
ual as well as physical, that he actually began 
to shed tears ; a weakness which men of merely 
delicate endowments, and destitute of the fiercer, 
deeper, and more tragic power of laughter, can 
hardly avoid, when the worst and meanest as¬ 
pect of life happens to be presented to them. 

Pyncheon Street was sometimes enlivened 
237 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

by spectacles of more imposing pretensions 
than the above, and which brought the multi¬ 
tude along with them. With a shivering repug¬ 
nance at the idea of personal contact with the 
world, a powerful impulse still seized on Clif¬ 
ford, whenever the rush and roar of the human 
tide grew strongly audible to him. This was 
made evident, one day, when a political pro¬ 
cession, with hundreds of flaunting banners, 
and drums, fifes, clarions, and cymbals, rever¬ 
berating between the rows of buildings, marched 
all through town, and trailed its length of 
trampling footsteps, and most infrequent up¬ 
roar, past the ordinarily quiet House of the 
Seven Gables. As a mere object of sight, no¬ 
thing is more deficient in picturesque features 
than a procession seen in its passage through 
narrow streets. The spectator feels it to be 
fool’s play, when he can distinguish the tedious 
commonplace of each man’s visage, with the 
perspiration and weary self-importance on it, 
and the very cut of his pantaloons, and the 
stiffness or laxity of his shirt-collar, and the 
dust on the back of his black coat. In order 
to become majestic, it should be viewed from 
some vantage point, as it rolls its slow and 
long array through the centre of a wide plain, 
or the stateliest public square of a city; for 
then, by its remoteness, it melts all the petty 
personalities, of which it is made up, into one 
238 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


broad mass of existence,— one great life, — one 
collected body of mankind, with a vast, homo¬ 
geneous spirit animating it. But, on the other 
hand, if an impressible person, standing alone 
over the brink of one of these processions, 
should behold it, not in its atoms, but in its 
aggregate, — as a mighty river of life, massive 
in its tide, and black with mystery, and, out of 
its depths, calling to the kindred depth within 
him, — then the contiguity would add to the 
effect. It might so fascinate him that he would 
hardly be restrained from plunging into the 
surging stream of human sympathies. 

So it proved with Clifford. He shuddered; 
he grew pale ; he threw an appealing look at 
Hepzibah and Phoebe, who were with him at 
the window. They comprehended nothing of 
his emotions, and supposed him merely dis¬ 
turbed by the unaccustomed tumult. At last, 
with tremulous limbs, he started up, set his foot 
on the window-sill, and in an instant more would 
have been in the unguarded balcony. As it 
was, the whole procession might have seen him, 
a wild, haggard figure, his gray locks floating in 
the wind that waved their banners ; a lonely 
being, estranged from his race, but now feeling 
himself man again, by virtue of the irrepressi¬ 
ble instinct that possessed him. Had Clifford 
attained the balcony, he would probably have 
leaped into the street; but whether impelled by 
*39 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the species of terror that sometimes urges its 
victim over the very precipice which he shrinks 
from, or by a natural magnetism, tending to¬ 
wards the great centre of humanity, it were 
not easy to decide. Both impulses might have 
wrought on him at once. 

But his companions, affrighted by his ges¬ 
ture,— which was that of a man hurried away 
in spite of himself, — seized Clifford’s gar¬ 
ment and held him back. Hepzibah shrieked. 
Phoebe, to whom all extravagance was a horror, 
burst into sobs and tears. 

“ Clifford, Clifford ! are you crazy ? ” cried 
his sister. 

“ I hardly know, Hepzibah,” said Clifford, 
drawing a long breath. “Fear nothing, — it is 
over now, — but had I taken that plunge, and 
survived it, methinks it would have made me 
another man ! ” 

Possibly, in some sense, Clifford may have 
been right. He needed a shock ; or perhaps 
he required to take a deep, deep plunge into 
the ocean of human life, and to sink down and 
be covered by its profoundness, and then to 
emerge, sobered, invigorated, restored to the 
world and to himself. Perhaps, again, he re¬ 
quired nothing less than the great final remedy 
— death! 

A similar yearning to renew the broken links 
of brotherhood with his kind sometimes showed 
240 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


itself in a milder form ; and once it was made 
beautiful by the religion that lay even deeper 
than itself. In the incident now to be sketched, 
there was a touching recognition, on Clifford’s 
part, of God’s care and love towards him, — 
towards this poor, forsaken man, who, if any 
mortal could, might have been pardoned for 
regarding himself as thrown aside, forgotten, 
and left to be the sport of some fiend, whose 
playfulness was an ecstasy of mischief. 

It was the Sabbath morning ; one of those 
bright, calm Sabbaths, with its own hallowed 
atmosphere, when Heaven seems to diffuse it¬ 
self over the earth’s face in a solemn smile, no 
less sweet than solemn. On such a Sabbath 
morn, were we pure enough to be its medium, 
we should be conscious of the earth’s natural 
worship ascending through our frames, on what¬ 
ever spot of ground we stood. The church- 
bells, with various tones, but all in harmony, 
were calling out and responding to one an¬ 
other, — “ It is the Sabbath ! — The Sabbath ! 
— Yea ; the Sabbath ! ” — and over the whole 
city the bells scattered the blessed sounds, now 
slowly, now with livelier joy, now one bell 
alone, now all the bells together, crying ear¬ 
nestly, — “ It is the Sabbath ! ” and flinging 
their accents afar off, to melt into the air and 
pervade it with the holy word. The air with 
God’s sweetest and tenderest sunshine in it, was 
241 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


meet for mankind to breathe into their hearts, 
and send it forth again as the utterance of 
prayer. 

Clifford sat at the window with Hepzibah, 
watching the neighbors as they stepped into the 
street. All of them, however unspiritual on 
other days, were transfigured by the Sabbath in¬ 
fluence ; so that their very garments — whether 
it were an old man's decent coat well brushed 
for the thousandth time, or a little boy's first 
sack and trousers finished yesterday by his mo¬ 
ther’s needle — had somewhat of the quality of 
ascension robes. Forth, likewise, from the por¬ 
tal of the old house stepped Phoebe, putting 
up her small green sunshade, and throwing up¬ 
ward a glance and smile of parting kindness to 
the faces at the arched window. In her aspect 
there was a familiar gladness, and a holiness 
that you could play with, and yet reverence it 
as much as ever. She was like a prayer, offered 
up in the homeliest beauty of one’s mother 
tongue. Fresh was Phoebe, moreover, and airy 
and sweet in her apparel; as if nothing that she 
wore — neither her gown, nor her small straw 
bonnet, nor her little kerchief, any more than 
her snowy stockings — had ever been put on 
before ; or, if worn, were all the fresher for it, 
and with a fragrance as if they had lain among 
the rosebuds. 

The girl waved her hand to Hepzibah and 
242 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


Clifford, and went up the street; a religion in 
herself, warm, simple, true, with a substance 
that could walk on earth, and a spirit that was 
capable of heaven. 

“ Hepzibah,” asked Clifford, after watching 
Phoebe to the corner, “ do you never go to 
church ? ” 

“ No, Clifford ! ” she replied, — “ not these 
many, many years ! ” 

“Were I to be there,” he rejoined, “ it seems 
to me that I could pray once more, when so 
many human souls were praying all around 
me ! 

She looked into Clifford’s face, and beheld 
there a soft natural effusion; for his heart 
gushed out, as it were, and ran over at his eyes, 
in delightful reverence for God, and kindly 
affection for his human brethren. The emotion 
communicated itself to Hepzibah. She yearned 
to take him by the hand, and go and kneel 
down, they two together, — both so long sepa¬ 
rate from the world, and, as she now recognized, 
scarcely friends with Him above, — to kneel 
down among the people, and be reconciled to 
God and man at once. 

“ Dear brother,” said she earnestly, “ let us 
go ! We belong nowhere. We have not a foot 
of space in any church to kneel upon ; but let 
us go to some place of worship, even if we 
stand in the broad aisle. Poor and forsaken 
243 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


as we are, some pew door will be opened to 
us ! ” 

So Hepzibah and her brother made them¬ 
selves ready, — as ready as they could in the 
best of their old-fashioned garments, which had 
hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so 
long that the dampness and mouldy smell of 
the past was on them, — made themselves 
ready, in their faded bettermost, to go to 
church. They descended the staircase together, 
— gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaci¬ 
ated, age-stricken Clifford ! They pulled open 
the front door, and stepped across the threshold, 
and felt, both of them, as if they were standing 
in the presence of the whole world, and with 
mankind’s great and terrible eye on them alone. 
The eye of their Father seemed to be with¬ 
drawn, and gave them no encouragement. The 
warm sunny air of the street made them shiver. 
Their hearts quaked within them at the idea of 
taking one step farther. 

“It cannot be, Hepzibah ! — it is too late,” 
said Clifford with deep sadness. “We are 
ghosts ! We have no right among human 
beings, — no right anywhere but in this old 
house, which has a curse on it, and which, there¬ 
fore, we are doomed to haunt! And, besides,” 
he continued, with a fastidious sensibility, in¬ 
alienably characteristic of the man, “ it would 
not be fit nor beautiful to go ! It is an ugly 
244 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


thought that I should be frightful to my fellow 
beings, and that children would cling to their 
mothers’ gowns at sight of me ! ” 

They shrank back into the dusky passage¬ 
way, and closed the door. But, going up the 
staircase again, they found the whole interior 
of the house tenfold more dismal, and the air 
closer and heavier, for the glimpse and breath 
of freedom which they had just snatched. They 
could not flee ; their jailer had but left the door 
ajar in mockery, and stood behind it to watch 
them stealing out. At the threshold, they felt 
his pitiless gripe upon them. For, what other 
dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What 
jailer so inexorable as one’s self! 

But it would be no fair picture of Clifford’s 
state of mind were we to represent him as con¬ 
tinually or prevailingly wretched. On the con¬ 
trary, there was- no other man in the city, we 
are bold to affirm, of so much as half his years, 
who enjoyed so many lightsome and griefless 
moments as himself. He had no burden of 
care upon him ; there were none of those ques¬ 
tions and contingencies with the future to be 
settled which wear away all other lives, and 
render them not worth having by the very pro¬ 
cess of providing for their support. In this 
respect he was a child, — a child for the whole 
term of his existence, be it long or short. In¬ 
deed, his life seemed to be standing still at a 
245 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


period little in advance of childhood, and to 
cluster all his reminiscences about that epoch; 
just as, after the torpor of a heavy blow, the 
sufferer's reviving consciousness goes back to a 
moment considerably behind the accident that 
stupefied him. He sometimes told Phoebe and 
Hepzibah his dreams, in which he invariably 
played the part of a child, or a very young man. 
So vivid were they, in his relation of them, that 
he once held a dispute with his sister as to the 
particular figure or print of a chintz morning- 
dress which he had seen their mother wear, in 
the dream of the preceding night. Hepzibah, 
piquing herself on a woman's accuracy in such 
matters, held it to be slightly different from 
what Clifford described ; but, producing the 
very gown from an old trunk, it proved to be 
identical with his remembrance of it. Had 
Clifford, every time that he emerged out of 
dreams so lifelike, undergone the torture of 
transformation from a boy into an old and 
broken man, the daily recurrence of the shock 
would have been too much to bear. It would 
have caused an acute agony to thrill from the 
morning twilight, all the day through, until 
bedtime; and even then would have mingled a 
dull, inscrutable pain and pallid hue of misfor¬ 
tune with the visionary bloom and adolescence 
of his slumber. But the nightly moonshine 
interwove itself with the morning mist, and 
246 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 


enveloped him as in a robe, which he hugged 
about his person, and seldom let realities pierce 
through ; he was not often quite awake, but 
slept open-eyed, and perhaps fancied himself 
most dreaming then. 

Thus, lingering always so near his childhood, 
he had sympathies with children, and kept his 
heart the fresher thereby, like a reservoir into 
which rivulets were pouring not far from the 
fountain-head. Though prevented, by a sub¬ 
tile sense of propriety, from desiring to associ¬ 
ate with them, he loved few things better than 
to look out of the arched window and see a 
little girl driving her hoop along the sidewalk, 
or schoolboys at a game of ball. Their voices, 
also, were very pleasant to him, heard at a dis¬ 
tance, all swarming and intermingling together 
as flies do in a sunny room. 

Clifford would, doubtless, have been glad to 
share their sports. One afternoon he was seized 
with an irresistible desire to blow soap-bubbles ; 
an amusement, as Hepzibah told Phoebe apart, 
that had been a favorite one with her brother 
when they were both children. Behold him, 
therefore, at the arched window, with an earthen 
pipe in his mouth ! Behold him, with his gray 
hair, and a wan, unreal smile over his counte¬ 
nance, where still hovered a beautiful grace, 
which his worst enemy must have acknowledged 
to be spiritual and immortal, since it had sur- 
247 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


vived so long ! Behold him, scattering airy 
spheres abroad from the window into the street! 
Little impalpable worlds were those soap-bub¬ 
bles, with the big world depicted, in hues bright 
as imagination, on the nothing of their surface. 
It was curious to see how the passers-by re¬ 
garded these brilliant fantasies, as they came 
floating down, and made the dull atmosphere 
imaginative about them. Some stopped to 
gaze, and, perhaps, carried a pleasant recollec¬ 
tion of the bubbles onward as far as the street 
corner ; some looked angrily upward, as if poor 
Clifford wronged them by setting an image of 
beauty afloat so near their dusty pathway. A 
great many put out their fingers or their walk¬ 
ing-sticks to touch, withal; and were perversely 
gratified, no doubt, when the bubble, with all 
its pictured earth and sky scene, vanished as if 
it had never been. 

At length, just as an elderly gentleman of 
very dignified presence happened to be passing, 
a large bubble sailed majestically down, and 
burst right against his nose ! He looked up, 
— at first with a stern, keen glance, which pen¬ 
etrated at once into the obscurity behind the 
arched window, — then with a smile which 
might be conceived as diffusing a dog-day sul¬ 
triness for the space of several yards about him. 

“ Aha, Cousin Clifford ! ” cried Judge Pyn- 
cheon. “What!” still blowing soap-bubbles!” 

248 


THE ARCHED WINDOW 

The tone seemed as if meant to be kind 
and soothing, but yet had a bitterness of sar¬ 
casm in it. As for Clifford, an absolute palsy 
of fear came over him. Apart from any defi¬ 
nite cause of dread which his past experience 
might have given him, he felt that native and 
original horror of the excellent Judge which is 
proper to a weak, delicate, and apprehensive 
character in the presence of massive strength. 
Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, 
therefore, the more terrible. There is no 
greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in 
the circle of his own connections. 

249 


XII 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 

I T must not be supposed that the life of a 
personage naturally so active as Phoebe 
could be wholly confined within the pre¬ 
cincts of the old Pyncheon House. Clifford's 
demands upon her time were usually satisfied, 
in those long days, considerably earlier than 
sunset. Quiet as his daily existence seemed, it 
nevertheless drained all the resources by which 
he lived. It was not physical exercise that 
overwearied him, — for except that he some¬ 
times wrought a little with a hoe, or paced the 
garden walk, or, in rainy weather, traversed a 
large unoccupied room, — it was his tendency 
to remain only too quiescent, as regarded any 
toil of the limbs and muscles. But, either there 
was a smouldering fire within him that con¬ 
sumed his vital energy, or the monotony that 
would have dragged itself with benumbing 
effect over a mind differently situated was no 
monotony to Clifford. Possibly, he was in a 
state of second growth and recovery, and was 
constantly assimilating nutriment for his spirit 
and intellect from sights, sounds, and events 
250 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


which passed as a perfect void to persons more 
practised with the world. As all is activity and 
vicissitude to the new mind of a child, so might 
it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone a 
kind of new creation, after its long-suspended 
life. 

Be the cause what it might, Clifford com¬ 
monly retired to rest, thoroughly exhausted, 
while the sunbeams were still melting through 
his window curtains, or were thrown with late 
lustre on the chamber wall. And while he thus 
slept early, as other children do, and dreamed 
of childhood, Phoebe was free to follow her own 
tastes for the remainder of the day and evening. 

This was a freedom essential to the health 
even of a character so little susceptible of mor¬ 
bid influences as that of Phoebe. The old 
house, as we have already said, had both the 
dry-rot and the damp-rot in its walls ; it was 
not good to breathe no other atmosphere than 
that. Hepzibah, though she had her valuable 
and redeeming traits, had grown to be a kind 
of lunatic by imprisoning herself so long in 
one place, with no other company than a single 
series of ideas, and but one affection, and one 
bitter sense of wrong. Clifford, the reader may 
perhaps imagine, was too inert to operate mor¬ 
ally on his fellow creatures, however intimate 
and exclusive their relations with him. But the 
sympathy or magnetism among human beings 
251 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


is more subtile and universal than we think; it 
exists, indeed, among different classes of organ¬ 
ized life, and vibrates from one to another. A 
flower, for instance, as Phoebe herself observed, 
always began to droop sooner in Clifford’s 
hand, or Hepzibah’s, than in her own; and by 
the same law, converting her whole daily life 
into a flower fragrance for these two sickly spir¬ 
its, the blooming girl must inevitably droop and 
fade much sooner than if worn on a younger 
and happier breast. Unless she had now and 
then indulged her brisk impulses, and breathed 
rural air in a suburban walk, or ocean breezes 
along the shore,— had occasionally obeyed the 
impulse of Nature, in New England girls, by 
attending a metaphysical or philosophical lec¬ 
ture, or viewing a seven-mile panorama, or lis¬ 
tening to a concert,— had gone shopping about 
the city, ransacking entire depots of splendid 
merchandise, and bringing home a ribbon, — 
had employed, likewise, a little time to read the 
Bible in her chamber, and had stolen a little 
more to think of her mother and her native 
place, — unless for such moral medicines as the 
above, we should soon have beheld our poor 
Phoebe grow thin and put on a bleached, un¬ 
wholesome aspect, and assume strange, shy 
ways, prophetic of old-maidenhood and a cheer¬ 
less future. 

Even as it was, a change grew visible ; a 
252 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


change partly to be regretted, although what¬ 
ever charm it infringed upon was repaired by 
another, perhaps more precious. She was not 
so constantly gay, but had her moods of 
thought, which Clifford, on the whole, liked 
better than her former phase of unmingled 
cheerfulness ; because now she understood him 
better and more delicately, and sometimes even 
interpreted him to himself. Her eyes looked 
larger, and darker, and deeper; so deep, at 
some silent moments, that they seemed like 
Artesian wells, down, down, into the infinite. 
She was less girlish than when we first beheld 
her alighting from the omnibus; less girlish, 
but more a woman. 

The only youthful mind with which Phoebe 
had an opportunity of frequent intercourse was 
that of the daguerreotypist. Inevitably, by the 
pressure of the seclusion about them, they had 
been brought into habits of some familiarity. 
Had they met under different circumstances, 
neither of these young persons would have been 
likely to bestow much thought upon the other, 
unless, indeed, their extreme dissimilarity 
should have proved a principle of mutual at¬ 
traction. Both, it is true, were characters pro¬ 
per to New England life, and possessing a 
common ground, therefore, in their more ex¬ 
ternal developments ; but as unlike, in their 
respective interiors, as if their native climes had 
253 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


been at world-wide distance. During the early 
part of their acquaintance, Phoebe had held 
back rather more than was customary with her 
frank and simple manners from Holgrave’s 
not very marked advances. Nor was she yet 
satisfied that she knew him well, although they 
almost daily met and talked together, in a kind, 
friendly, and what seemed to be a familiar way. 

The artist, in a desultory manner, had im¬ 
parted to Phoebe something of his history. 
Young as he was, and had his career terminated 
at the point already attained, there had been 
enough of incident to fill, very creditably, an 
autobiographic volume. A romance on the 
plan of Gil Bias, adapted to American society 
and manners, would cease to be a romance. 
The experience of many individuals among us, 
who think it hardly worth the telling, would 
equal the vicissitudes of the Spaniard’s earlier 
life ; while their ultimate success, or the point 
whither they tend, may be incomparably higher 
than any that a novelist would imagine for his 
hero. Holgrave, as he told Phoebe somewhat 
proudly, could not boast of his origin, unless 
as being exceedingly humble, nor of his educa¬ 
tion, except that it had been the scantiest pos¬ 
sible, and obtained by a few winter-months’ 
attendance at a district school. Left early to 
his own guidance, he had begun to be self- 
dependent while yet a boy ; and it was a con- 
254 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


dition aptly suited to his natural force of will. 
Though now but twenty-two years old (lacking 
some months, which are years in such a life), 
he had already been, first, a country school¬ 
master ; next, a salesman in a country store; 
and, either at the same time or afterwards, the 
political editor of a country newspaper. He 
had subsequently travelled New England and 
the Middle States, as a peddler, in the employ¬ 
ment of a Connecticut manufactory of cologne- 
water and other essences. In an episodical way 
he had studied and practised dentistry, and with 
very flattering success, especially in many of the 
factory towns along our inland streams. As a 
supernumerary official, of some kind or other, 
aboard a packet-ship, he had visited Europe, 
and found means, before his return, to see 
Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a 
later period he had spent some months in a 
community of Fourierists. Still more recently 
he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, 
for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, 
indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting Chanti¬ 
cleer, who happened to be scratching near by, 
to sleep) he had very remarkable endowments. 

His present phase, as a daguerreotypist, was 
of no more importance in his own view, nor 
likely to be more permanent, than any of the 
preceding ones. It had been taken up with the 
careless alacrity of an adventurer, who had his 
255 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


bread to earn. It would be thrown aside as 
carelessly, whenever he should choose to earn 
his bread by some other equally digressive 
means. But what was most remarkable, and, 
perhaps, showed a more than common poise in 
the young man, was the fact that, amid all these 
personal vicissitudes, he had never lost his 
identity. Homeless as he had been, — con¬ 
tinually changing his whereabout, and, there¬ 
fore, responsible neither to public opinion nor 
to individuals, — putting off one exterior, and 
snatching up another, to be soon shifted for a 
third, — he had never violated the innermost 
man, but had carried his conscience along with 
him. It was impossible to know Holgrave 
without recognizing this to be the fact. Hep- 
zibah had seen it. Phoebe soon saw it like¬ 
wise, and gave him the sort of confidence which 
such a certainty inspires. She was startled, 
however, and sometimes repelled, — not by any 
doubt of his integrity to whatever law he ac¬ 
knowledged, but by a sense that his law differed 
from her own. He made her uneasy, and 
seemed to unsettle everything around her, by 
his lack of reverence for what was fixed, unless, 
at a moment’s warning, it could establish its 
right to hold its ground. 

Then, moreover, she scarcely thought him 
affectionate in his nature. He was too calm 
and cool an observer. Phoebe felt his eye, 
256 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


often ; his heart, seldom or never. He took a 
certain kind of interest in Hepzibah and her 
brother, and Phoebe herself. He studied them 
attentively, and allowed no slightest circum¬ 
stance of their individualities to escape him. 
He was ready to do them whatever good he 
might; but, after all, he never exactly made 
common cause with them, nor gave any reliable 
evidence that he loved them better in propor¬ 
tion as he knew them more. In his relations 
with them, he seemed to be in quest of mental 
food, not heart-sustenance. Phoebe could not 
conceive what interested him so much in her 
friends and herself, intellectually, since he cared 
nothing for them, or, comparatively, so little, 
as objects of human affection. 

Always, in his interviews with Phoebe, the 
artist made especial inquiry as to the welfare 
of Clifford, whom, except at the Sunday festi¬ 
val, he seldom saw. 

“ Does he still seem happy ? ” he asked one 
day. 

“ As happy as a child,” answered Phoebe ; 
“ but — like a child, too — very easily dis¬ 
turbed.” 

“How disturbed?” inquired Holgrave. 
“ By things without, or by thoughts within ? ” 

“ I cannot see his thoughts ! How should 
I ? ” replied Phoebe with simple piquancy. 
“Very often his humor changes without any 
257 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

reason that can be guessed at, just as a cloud 
comes over the sun. Latterly, since I have 
begun to know him better, I feel it to be not 
quite right to look closely into his moods. He 
has had such a great sorrow, that his heart is 
made all solemn and sacred by it. When he 
is cheerful, — when the sun shines into his 
mind, — then I venture to peep in, just as far 
as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy 
ground where the shadow falls ! ” 

“ How prettily you express this sentiment! ” 
said the artist. “ I can understand the feeling, 
without possessing it. Had I your opportuni¬ 
ties, no scruples would prevent me from fath¬ 
oming Clifford to the full depth of my plum¬ 
met-line ! ” 

“ How strange that you should wish it! ” 
remarked Phoebe involuntarily. “ What is Cou¬ 
sin Clifford to you ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing, — of course, nothing ! ” an¬ 
swered Holgrave with a smile. <c Only this 
is such an odd and incomprehensible world ! 
The more I look at it, the more it puzzles me, 
and I begin to suspect that a man’s bewilder¬ 
ment is the measure of his wisdom. Men and 
women, and children, too, are such strange 
creatures, that one never can be certain that he 
really knows them ; nor ever guess what they 
have been from what he sees them to be now. 
Judge Pyncheon! Clifford! What a com- 
258 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


plex riddle — a complexity of complexities — 
do they present! It requires intuitive sympa¬ 
thy, like a young girl's, to solve it. A mere 
observer, like myself (who never have any intui¬ 
tions, and am, at best, only subtile and acute), 
is pretty certain to go astray.” 

The artist now turned the conversation to 
themes less dark than that which they had 
touched upon. Phoebe and he were young 
together; nor had Holgrave, in his premature 
experience of life, wasted entirely that beauti¬ 
ful spirit of youth, which, gushing forth from 
one small heart and fancy, may diffuse itself 
over the universe, making it all as bright as on 
the first day of creation. Man's own youth 
is the world’s youth; at least, he feels as if it 
were, and imagines that the earth’s granite sub¬ 
stance is something not yet hardened, and 
which he can mould into whatever shape he 
likes. So it was with Holgrave. He could 
talk sagely about the world’s old age, but never 
actually believed what he said; he was a young 
man still, and therefore looked upon the world 
— that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, 
decrepit, without being venerable — as a tender 
stripling, capable of being improved into all 
that it ought to be, but scarcely yet had shown 
the remotest promise of becoming. He had 
that sense, or inward prophecy, — which a 
young man had better never have been born 
259 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


than not to have, and a mature man had better 
die at once than utterly to relinquish, — that we 
are not doomed to creep on forever in the old 
bad way, but that, this very now, there are the 
harbingers abroad of a golden era, to be accom¬ 
plished in his own lifetime. It seemed to Hol- 
grave, — as doubtless it has seemed to the hope¬ 
ful of every century since the epoch of Adam's 
grandchildren, — that in this age, more than 
ever before, the moss-grown and rotten Past 
is to be torn down, and lifeless institutions 
to be thrust out of the way, and their dead 
corpses buried, and everything to begin anew. 

As to the main point, — may we never live 
to doubt it! — as to the better centuries that 
are coming, the artist was surely right. His 
error lay in supposing that this age, more than 
any past or future one, is destined to see the 
tattered garments of Antiquity exchanged for a 
new suit, instead of gradually renewing them¬ 
selves by patchwork; in applying his own lit¬ 
tle life-span as the measure of an interminable 
achievement; and, more than all, in fancying 
that it mattered anything to the great end in 
view whether he himself should contend for it 
or against it. Yet it was well for him to think 
so. This enthusiasm, infusing itself through 
the calmness of his character, and thus taking 
an aspect of settled thought and wisdom, would 
serve to keep his youth pure, and make his as- 
260 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 

pirations high. And when, with the years set¬ 
tling down more weightily upon him, his early 
faith should be modified by inevitable experi¬ 
ence, it would be with no harsh and sudden 
revolution of his sentiments. He would still 
have faith in man's brightening destiny, and 
perhaps love him all the better, as he should 
recognize his helplessness in his own behalf; 
and the haughty faith, with which he began life, 
would be well bartered for a far humbler one at 
its close, in discerning that man's best directed 
effort accomplishes a kind of dream, while God 
is the sole worker of realities. 

Holgrave had read very little, and that little 
in passing through the thoroughfare of life, 
where the mystic language of his books was 
necessarily mixed up with the babble of the 
multitude, so that both one and the other were 
apt to lose any sense that might have been 
properly their own. He considered himself a 
thinker, and was certainly of a thoughtful turn, 
but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps 
hardly yet reached the point where an educated 
man begins to think. The true value of his 
character lay in that deep consciousness of in¬ 
ward strength, which made all his past vicissi¬ 
tudes seem merely like a change of garments; 
in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely 
knew of its existence, but which gave a warmth 
to everything that he laid his hand on; in that 
261 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


personal ambition, hidden — from his own as 
as well as other eyes — among his more generous 
impulses, but in which lurked a certain efficacy, 
that might solidify him from a theorist into the 
champion of some practicable cause. Alto¬ 
gether in his culture and want of culture, — in 
his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the 
practical experience that counteracted some of 
its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for 
man’s welfare, and his recklessness of whatever 
the ages had established in man’s behalf; in 
his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, 
and in what he lacked, — the artist might fitly 
enough stand forth as the representative of 
many compeers in his native land. 

His career it would be difficult to prefigure. 
There appeared to be qualities in Holgrave, 
such as, in a country where everything is free 
to the hand that can grasp it, could hardly fail 
to put some of the world’s prizes within his 
reach. But these matters are delightfully un¬ 
certain. At almost every step in life, we meet 
with young men of just about Holgrave’s age, 
for whom we anticipate wonderful things, but 
of whom, even after much and careful inquiry, 
we never happen to hear another word. The 
effervescence of youth and passion, and the 
fresh gloss of the intellect and imagination, en¬ 
dow them with a false brilliancy, which makes 
fools of themselves and other people. Like 
262 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they 
show finely in their first newness, but cannot 
stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober 
aspect after washing-day. 

But our business is with Holgrave as we find 
him on this particular afternoon, and in the 
arbor of the Pyncheon garden. In that point 
of view, it was a pleasant sight to behold this 
young man, with so much faith in himself, and 
so fair an appearance of admirable powers, — 
so little harmed, too, by the many tests that 
had tried his metal, — it was pleasant to see 
him in his kindly intercourse with Phoebe. 
Her thought had scarcely done him justice 
when it pronounced him cold; or, if so, he had 
grown warmer now. Without such purpose on 
her part, and unconsciously on his, she made 
the House of the Seven Gables like a home to 
him, and the garden a familiar precinct. With 
the insight on which he prided himself, he fan¬ 
cied that he could look through Phoebe, and all 
around her, and could read her off like a page 
of a child’s story-book. But these transparent 
natures are often deceptive in their depth; 
those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain are 
farther from us than we think. Thus the ar¬ 
tist, whatever he might judge of Phoebe’s capa¬ 
city, was beguiled, by some silent charm of hers, 
to talk freely of what he dreamed of doing 
in the world. He poured himself out as to 
263 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


another self. Very possibly, he forgot Phoebe 
while he talked to her, and was moved only by 
the inevitable tendency of thought, when ren¬ 
dered sympathetic by enthusiasm and emotion, 
to flow into the first safe reservoir which it 
finds. But, had you peeped at them through 
the chinks of the garden fence, the young man’s 
earnestness and heightened color might have 
led you to suppose that he was making love to 
the young girl! 

At length, something was said by Holgrave 
that made it apposite for Phoebe to inquire 
what had first brought him acquainted with her 
cousin Hepzibah, and why he now chose to 
lodge in the desolate old Pyncheon House. 
Without directly answering her, he turned from 
the Future, which had heretofore been the 
theme of his discourse, and began to speak of 
the influences of the Past. One subject, in¬ 
deed, is but the reverberation of the other. 

“ Shall we never, never get rid of this Past ? ” 
cried he, keeping up the earnest tone of his 
preceding conversation. cc It lies upon the 
Present like a giant’s dead body ! In fact, the 
case is just as if a young giant were compelled 
to waste all his strength in carrying about the 
corpse of the old giant, his grandfather, who 
died a long while ago, and only needs to be 
decently buried. Just think a moment, and it 
will startle you to see what slaves we are to 
264 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


bygone times, — to Death, if we give the matter 
the right word ! ” 

a But I do not see it,” observed Phoebe. 

“ For example, then,” continued Holgrave : 
cc a dead man, if he happen to have made a 
will, disposes of wealth no longer his own ; or, 
if he die intestate, it is distributed in accordance 
with the notions of men much longer dead than 
he. A dead man sits on all our judgment- 
seats ; and living judges do but search out and 
repeat his decisions. We read in dead men’s 
books ! We laugh at dead men’s jokes, and 
cry at dead men’s pathos ! We are sick of 
dead men’s diseases, physical and moral, and 
die of the same remedies with which dead doc¬ 
tors killed their patients! We worship the 
living Deity according to dead men’s forms and 
creeds. Whatever we seek to do, of our own 
free motion, a dead man’s icy hand obstructs 
us! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a 
dead man’s white, immitigable face encounters 
them, and freezes our very heart! And we 
must be dead ourselves before we can begin to 
have our proper influence on our own world, 
which will then be no longer our world, but 
the world of another generation, with which we 
shall have no shadow of a right to interfere. I 
ought to have said, too, that we live in dead 
men’s houses ; as, for instance, in this of the 
Seven Gables ! ” 


265 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ And why not,” said Phoebe, “ so long as 
we can be comfortable in them ? ” 

“ But we shall live to see the day, I trust,” 
went on the artist, “ when no man shall build 
his house for posterity. Why should he ? He 
might just as reasonably order a durable suit 
of clothes, — leather, or gutta-percha, or what¬ 
ever else lasts longest, — so that his great¬ 
grandchildren should have the benefit of them, 
and cut precisely the same figure in the world 
that he himself does. If each generation were 
allowed and expected to build its own houses, 
that single change, comparatively unimportant 
in itself, would imply almost every reform 
which society is now suffering for. I doubt 
whether even our public edifices — our Capi¬ 
tols, state-houses, court-houses, city hall, and 
churches — ought to be built of such perma¬ 
nent materials as stone or brick. It were bet¬ 
ter that they should crumble to ruin once in 
twenty years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the 
people to examine into and reform the institu¬ 
tions which they symbolize.” 

“ How you hate everything old! ” said 
Phoebe in dismay. “ It makes me dizzy to 
think of such a shifting world ! ” 

“ I certainly love nothing mouldy,” answered 
Holgrave. “ Now, this old Pyncheon House ! 
Is it a wholesome place to live in, with its black 
shingles, and the green moss that shows how 
266 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


damp they are ?— its dark, low-studded rooms ? 
— its grime and sordidness, which are the crys¬ 
tallization on its walls of the human breath, that 
has been drawn and exhaled here in discontent 
and anguish ? The house ought to be purified 
with fire, — purified till only its ashes remain ! ” 

“ Then why do you live in it ? ” asked 
Phoebe, a little piqued. 

“ Oh, I am pursuing my studies here; not 
in books, however,” replied Holgrave. “The 
house, in my view, is expressive of that odious 
and abominable Past, with all its bad influences, 
against which I have just been declaiming. I 
dwell in it for a while, that I may know the 
better how to hate it. By the bye, did you ever 
hear the story of Maule, the wizard, and what 
happened between him and your immeasurably 
great-grandfather? ” 

“ Yes, indeed ! ” said Phoebe ; “ I heard it 
long ago, from my father, and two or three 
times from my cousin Hepzibah, in the month 
that I have been here. She seems to think 
that all the calamities of the Pyncheons began 
from that quarrel with the wizard, as you call 
him. And you, Mr. Holgrave, look as if you 
thought so too ! How singular that you should 
believe what is so very absurd, when you reject 
many things that are a great deal worthier of 
credit! ” 

“ I do believe it,” said the artist seriously; 

267 


THE HOUSE OE THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ not as a superstition, however, but as proved 
by unquestionable facts, and as exemplifying a 
theory. Now, see : under those seven gables, 
at which we now look up, — and which old 
Colonel Pyncheon meant to be the house of 
his descendants, in prosperity and happiness, 
down to an epoch far beyond the present, — 
under that roof, through a portion of three 
centuries, there has been perpetual remorse of 
conscience, a constantly defeated hope, strife 
amongst kindred, various misery, a strange 
form of death, dark suspicion, unspeakable dis¬ 
grace, — all, or most of which calamity I have 
the means of tracing to the old Puritan's inor¬ 
dinate desire to plant and endow a family. To 
plant a family! This idea is at the bottom of 
most of the wrong and mischief which men do. 
The truth is, that, once in every half-century, 
at longest, a family should be merged into the 
great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all 
about its ancestors. Human blood, in order 
to keep its freshness, should run in hidden 
streams, as the water of an aqueduct is conveyed 
in subterranean pipes. In the family existence 
of these Pyncheons, for instance, — forgive me, 
Phoebe; but I cannot think of you as one of 
them, — in their brief New England pedigree, 
there has been time enough to infect them all 
with one kind of lunacy or another! ” 

“ You speak very unceremoniously of my 
268 


THE DAGUERREOTYPIST 


kindred/’ said Phoebe, debating with herself 
whether she ought to take offence. 

“ I speak true thoughts to a true mind ! ” 
answered Holgrave, with a vehemence which 
Phoebe had not before witnessed in him. c< The 
truth is as I say! Furthermore, the original 
perpetrator and father of this mischief appears 
to have perpetuated himself, and still walks the 
street, — at least, his very image, in mind and 
body, — with the fairest prospect of transmit¬ 
ting to posterity as rich and as wretched an in¬ 
heritance as he has received! Do you remem¬ 
ber the daguerreotype, and its resemblance to 
the old portrait ? ” 

“ How strangely in earnest you are ! ” ex¬ 
claimed Phoebe, looking at him with surprise 
and perplexity ; half alarmed and partly in¬ 
clined to laugh. “ You talk of the lunacy of 
the Pyncheons ; is it contagious ? ” 

“ I understand you ! ” said the artist, color¬ 
ing and laughing. “ I believe I am a little 
mad. This subject has taken hold of my mind 
with the strangest tenacity of clutch since I have 
lodged in yonder old gable. As one method 
of throwing it off, I have put an incident of the 
Pyncheon family history, with which I happen 
to be acquainted, into the form of a legend, and 
mean to publish it in a magazine.” 

“ Do you write for the magazines ? ” inquired 
Phoebe. 


269 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Is it possible you did not know it ? ” cried 
Holgrave. “ Well, such is literary fame ! Yes, 
Miss Phoebe Pyncheon, among the multitude 
of my marvellous gifts I have that of writing 
stories; and my name has figured, I can assure 
you, on the covers of Graham and Godey, mak¬ 
ing as respectable an appearance, for aught I 
could see, as any of the canonized bead-roll with 
which it was associated. In the humorous line, 
I am thought to have a very pretty way with 
me ; and as for pathos, I am as provocative 
of tears as an onion. But shall I read you my 
story ? ” 

“Yes, if it is not very long,” said Phoebe,— 
and added laughingly, — “ nor very dull.” 

As this latter point was one which the da- 
guerreotypist could not decide for himself, he 
forthwith produced his roll of manuscript, and, 
while the late sunbeams gilded the seven gables, 
began to read. 


270 


XIII 


ALICE PYNCHEON 

T HERE was a message brought, one 
day, from the worshipful Gervayse 
Pyncheon to young Matthew Maule, 
the carpenter, desiring his immediate presence 
at the House of the Seven Gables. 

“ And what does your master want with me ? ” 
said the carpenter to Mr. Pyncheon’s black ser¬ 
vant. “ Does the house need any repair ? Well 
it may, by this time ; and no blame to my father 
who built it, neither! I was reading the old 
Colonel’s tombstone, no longer ago than last 
Sabbath ; and, reckoning from that date, the 
house has stood seven-and-thirty years. No 
wonder if there should be a job to do on the 
roof.” 

“ Don’t know what massa wants,” answered 
Scipio. “ The house is a berry good house, 
and old Colonel Pyncheon think so too, I 
reckon; — else why the old man haunt it so, 
and frighten a poor nigga, as he does ? ” 

“Well, well, friend Scipio; let your master 
know that I’m coming,” said the carpenter with 
a laugh. “For a fair, workmanlike job, he’ll 
271 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


find me his man. And so the house is haunted, 
is it? It will take a tighter workman than I 
am to keep the spirits out of the Seven Ga¬ 
bles. Even if the Colonel would be quiet,” 
he added, muttering to himself, “ my old grand¬ 
father, the wizard, will be pretty sure to stick 
to the Pyncheons as long as their walls hold 
together.” 

“ What’s that you mutter to yourself, Mat¬ 
thew Maule ? ” asked Scipio. “ And what for 
do you look so black at me ? ” 

“ No matter, darky ! ” said the carpenter. 
“ Do you think nobody is to look black but 
yourself? Go tell your master I’m coming; 
and if you happen to see Mistress Alice, his 
daughter, give Matthew Maule’s humble re¬ 
spects to her. She has brought a fair face from 
Italy, — fair, and gentle, and proud, — has that 
same Alice Pyncheon ! ” 

<c He talk of Mistress Alice ! ” cried Scipio, 
as he returned from his errand. “ The low car¬ 
penter man! He no business so much as to 
look at her a great way off! ” 

This young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, 
it must be observed, was a person little under¬ 
stood, and not very generally liked, in the town 
where he resided; not that anything could be 
alleged against his integrity, or his skill and 
diligence in the handicraft which he exercised. 
The aversion (as it might justly be called) with 
272 


In keeping with the dismal and bitter weather 



























































































































,v> as: ‘.mriVa vU 'Kv» >vu^vvl. w\ 



















































































ALICE PYNCHEON 


which many persons regarded him was partly 
the result of his own character and deportment, 
and partly an inheritance. 

He was the grandson of a former Matthew 
Maule, one of the early settlers of the town, 
and who had been a famous and terrible wizard 
in his day. This old reprobate was one of the 
sufferers when Cotton Mather, and his brother 
ministers, and the learned judges, and other wise 
men, and Sir William Phipps, the sagacious 
governor, made such laudable efforts to weaken 
the great enemy of souls, by sending a multi¬ 
tude of his adherents up the rocky pathway of 
Gallows Hill. Since those days, no doubt, it 
had grown to be suspected that, in consequence 
of an unfortunate overdoing of a work praise¬ 
worthy in itself, the proceedings against the 
witches had proved far less acceptable to the 
Beneficent Father than to that very Arch 
Enemy whom they were intended to distress 
and utterly overwhelm. It is not the less cer¬ 
tain, however, that awe and terror brooded over 
the memories of those who died for this horri¬ 
ble crime of witchcraft. Their graves, in the 
crevices of the rocks, were supposed to be inca¬ 
pable of retaining the occupants who had been 
so hastily thrust into them. Old Matthew 
Maule, especially, was known to have as little 
hesitation or difficulty in rising out of his grave 
as an ordinary man in getting out of bed, and 
273 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

was as often seen at midnight as living people 
at noonday. This pestilent wizard (in whom 
his just punishment seemed to have wrought 
no manner of amendment) had an inveterate 
habit of haunting a certain mansion, styled the 
House of the Seven Gables, against the owner 
of which he pretended to hold an unsettled 
claim for ground-rent. The ghost, it appears, 
— with the pertinacity which was one of his 
distinguishing characteristics while alive, — in¬ 
sisted that he was the rightful proprietor of the 
site upon which the house stood. His terms 
were, that either the aforesaid ground-rent, from 
the day when the cellar began to be dug, should 
be paid down, or the mansion itself given up ; 
else he, the ghostly creditor, would have his 
finger in all the affairs of the Pyncheons, and 
make everything go wrong with them, though 
it should be a thousand years after his death. 
It was a wild story, perhaps, but seemed not 
altogether so incredible to those who could re¬ 
member what an inflexibly obstinate old fellow 
this wizard Maule had been. 

Now, the wizard’s grandson, the young Mat¬ 
thew Maule of our story, was popularly sup¬ 
posed to have inherited some of his ancestor’s 
questionable traits. It is wonderful how many 
absurdities were promulgated in reference to the 
young man. He was fabled, for example, to 
have a strange power of getting into people’s 
274 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


dreams, and regulating matters there according 
to his own fancy, pretty much like the stage- 
manager of a theatre. There was a great deal 
of talk among the neighbors, particularly the 
petticoated ones, about what they called the 
witchcraft of Maule’s eye. Some said that he 
could look into people’s minds ; others, that, 
by the marvellous power of this eye, he could 
draw people into his own mind, or send them, 
if he pleased, to do errands to his grandfather, 
in the spiritual world ; others, again, that it 
was what is termed an Evil Eye, and possessed 
the valuable faculty of blighting corn, and dry¬ 
ing children into mummies with the heartburn. 
But, after all, what worked most to the young 
carpenter’s disadvantage was, first, the reserve 
and sternness of his natural disposition, and 
next, the fact of his not being a church-commu¬ 
nicant, and the suspicion of his holding heretical 
tenets in matters of religion and polity. 

After receiving Mr. Pyncheon’s message, the 
carpenter merely tarried to finish a small job, 
which he happened to have in hand, and then 
took his way towards the House of the Seven 
Gables. This noted edifice, though its style 
might be getting a little out of fashion, was still 
as respectable a family residence as that of any 
gentleman in town. The present owner, Ger- 
vayse Pyncheon, was said to have contracted a 
dislike to the house, in consequence of a shock 
275 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

to his sensibility, in early childhood, from the 
sudden death of his grandfather. In the very 
act of running to climb Colonel Pyncheon’s 
knee, the boy had discovered the old Puritan 
to be a corpse ! On arriving at manhood, Mr. 
Pyncheon had visited England, where he mar¬ 
ried a lady of fortune, and had subsequently 
spent many years, partly in the mother coun¬ 
try, and partly in various cities on the continent 
of Europe. During this period, the family 
mansion had been consigned to the charge of a 
kinsman, who was allowed to make it his home 
for the time being, in consideration of keeping 
the premises in thorough repair. So faithfully 
had this contract been fulfilled, that now, as 
the carpenter approached the house, his prac¬ 
tised eye could detect nothing to criticise in its 
condition. The peaks of the seven gables rose 
up sharply; the shingled roof looked thor¬ 
oughly water-tight; and the glittering plaster- 
work entirely covered the exterior walls, and 
sparkled in the October sun, as if it had been 
new only a week ago. 

The house had that pleasant aspect of life 
which is like the cheery expression of comfort¬ 
able activity in the human countenance. You 
could see, at once, that there was the stir of a 
large family within it. A huge load of oak- 
wood was passing through the gateway, towards 
the outbuildings in the rear ; the fat cook — or 
276 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


probably it might be the housekeeper — stood 
at the side door, bargaining for some turkeys 
and poultry which a countryman had brought 
for sale. Now and then a maid-servant, neatly 
dressed, and now the shining sable face of a 
slave, might be seen bustling across the win¬ 
dows, in the lower part of the house. At an 
open window of a room in the second story, 
hanging over some pots of beautiful and deli¬ 
cate flowers, — exotics, but which had never 
known a more genial sunshine than that of the 
New England autumn, — was the figure of a 
young lady, an exotic, like the flowers, and 
beautiful and delicate as they. Her presence 
imparted an indescribable grace and faint witch¬ 
ery to the whole edifice. In other respects, it 
was a substantial, jolly-looking mansion, and 
seemed fit to be the residence of a patriarch, 
who might establish his own headquarters in 
the front gable and assign one of the remainder 
to each of his six children, while the great chim¬ 
ney in the centre should symbolize the old 
fellow's hospitable heart, which kept them all 
warm, and made a great whole of the seven 
smaller ones. 

There was a vertical sundial on the front 
gable ; and as the carpenter passed beneath it, 
he looked up and noted the hour. 

“ Three o'clock ! " said he to himself. “ My 
father told me that dial was put up only an 
2 77 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


hour before the old Colonel's death. How 
truly it has kept time these seven-and-thirty 
years past! The shadow creeps and creeps, 
and is always looking over the shoulder of the 
sunshine ! ” 

It might have befitted a craftsman, like Mat¬ 
thew Maule, on being sent for to a gentleman’s 
house, to go to the back door, vhere servants 
and work-people were usually admitted ; or at 
least to the side entrance, where the better class 
of tradesmen made application. But the car¬ 
penter had a great deal of pride and stiffness in 
his nature ; and, at this moment, moreover, his 
heart was bitter with the sense of hereditary 
wrong, because he considered the great Pyn- 
cheon House to be standing on soil which 
should have been his own. On this very site, 
beside a spring of delicious water, his grandfa¬ 
ther had felled the pine-trees and built a cot¬ 
tage, in which children had been born to him ; 
and it was only from a dead man’s stiffened 
fingers that Colonel Pyncheon had wrested 
away the title-deeds. So young Maule went 
straight to the principal entrance, beneath a 
portal of carved oak, and gave such a peal of 
the iron knocker that you would have imagined 
the stern old wizard himself to be standing at 
the threshold. 

Black Scipio answered the summons in a 
prodigious hurry ; but showed the whites of 
278 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


his eyes in amazement on beholding only the 
carpenter. 

“ Lord-a-mercy ! what a great man he be, 
this carpenter fellow ! ” mumbled Scipio, down 
in his throat. “ Anybody think he beat on the 
door with his biggest hammer! ” 

<c Here I am ! ” said Maule sternly. “ Show 
me the way to your master’s parlor ! ” 

As he stept into the house, a note of sweet 
and melancholy music thrilled and vibrated 
along the passageway, proceeding from one of 
the rooms above stairs. It was the harpsichord 
which Alice Pyncheon had brought with her 
from beyond the sea. The fair Alice bestowed 
most of her maiden leisure between flowers and 
music, although the former were apt to droop, 
and the melodies were often sad. She was of 
foreign education, and could not take kindly 
to the New England modes of life, in which 
nothing beautiful had ever been developed. 

As Mr. Pyncheon had been impatiently await¬ 
ing Maule’s arrival, black Scipio, of course, lost 
no time in ushering the carpenter into his mas¬ 
ter’s presence. The room in which this gentle¬ 
man sat was a parlor of moderate size, looking 
out upon the garden of the house, and having 
its windows partly shadowed by the foliage of 
fruit-trees. It was Mr. Pyncheon’s peculiar 
apartment, and was provided with furniture, in 
an elegant and costly style, principally from 
279 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


Paris ; the floor (which was unusual at that day) 
being covered with a carpet, so skilfully and 
richly wrought that it seemed to glow as with 
living flowers. In one corner stood a marble 
woman, to whom her own beauty was the sole 
and sufficient garment. Some pictures — that 
looked old, and had a mellow tinge diffused 
through all their artful splendor - >- hung on the 
walls. Near the fireplace was a large and very 
beautiful cabinet of ebony, inlaid with ivory; a 
piece of antique furniture, which Mr. Pyncheon 
had bought in Venice, and which he used as 
the treasure-place for medals, ancient coins, 
and whatever small and valuable curiosities he 
had picked up on his travels. Through all 
this variety of decoration, however, the room 
showed its original characteristics ; its low stud, 
its cross-beam, its chimney-piece, with the old- 
fashioned Dutch tiles ; so that it was the 
emblem of a mind industriously stored with 
foreign ideas, and elaborated into artificial re¬ 
finement, but neither larger, nor, in its proper 
self, more elegant than before. 

There were two objects that appeared rather 
out of place in this very handsomely furnished 
room. One was a large map, or surveyor's 
plan, of a tract of land, which looked as if it 
had been drawn a good many years ago, and 
was now dingy with smoke, and soiled, here 
and there, with the touch of fingers. The other 
280 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


was a portrait of a stern old man, in a Puritan 
garb, painted roughly, but with a bold effect, 
and a remarkably strong expression of char¬ 
acter. 

At a small table, before a fire of English sea- 
coal, sat Mr. Pyncheon, sipping coffee, which 
had grown to be a very favorite beverage with 
him in France. He was a middle-aged and really 
handsome man, with a wig flowing down upon 
his shoulders; his coat was of blue velvet, 
with lace on the borders and at the but¬ 
tonholes ; and the firelight glistened on the 
spacious breadth of his waistcoat, which was 
flowered all over with gold. On the entrance 
of Scipio, ushering in the carpenter, Mr. Pyn¬ 
cheon turned partly round, but resumed his 
former position, and proceeded deliberately to 
finish his cup of coffee, without immediate no¬ 
tice of the guest whom he had summoned to 
his presence. It was not that he intended any 
rudeness or improper neglect, — which, indeed, 
he would have blushed to be guilty of, — but 
it never occurred to him that a person in 
Maule’s station had a claim on his courtesy, or 
would trouble himself about it one way or the 
other. 

The carpenter, however, stepped at once to 
the hearth, and turned himself about, so as to 
look Mr. Pyncheon in the face. 

“ You sent for me,” said he. “ Be pleased 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to explain your business, that I may go back to 
my own affairs.” 

“ Ah! excuse me,” said Mr. Pyncheon qui¬ 
etly. “ I did not mean to tax your time without 
a recompense. Your name, I think, is Maule, 
— Thomas or Matthew Maule, — a son or 
grandson of the builder of this house ? ” 

“ Matthew Maule,” replied the carpenter,— 
<c son of him who built the house, — grandson 
of the rightful proprietor of the soil.” 

“ I know the dispute to which you allude,” 
observed Mr. Pyncheon with undisturbed equa¬ 
nimity. “ I am well aware that my grandfather 
was compelled to resort to a suit at law, in order 
to establish his claim to the foundation-site of 
this edifice. We will not, if you please, renew 
the discussion. The matter was settled at the 
time, and by the competent authorities, — equi¬ 
tably, it is to be presumed, — and, at all events, 
irrevocably. Yet, singularly enough, there is 
an incidental reference to this very subject in 
what I am now about to say to you. And this 
same inveterate grudge, — excuse me, I mean 
no offence, — this irritability, which you have 
just shown, is not entirely aside from the 
matter.” 

“ If you can find anything for your purpose, 
Mr. Pyncheon,” said the carpenter, “ in a man’s 
natural resentment for the wrongs done to his 
blood, you are welcome to it.” 

282 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


“ I take you at your word, Goodman Maule," 
said the owner of the Seven Gables, with a 
smile, “ and will proceed to suggest a mode in 
which your hereditary resentments —justifiable 
or otherwise — may have had a bearing on my 
affairs. You have heard, I suppose, that the 
Pyncheon family, ever since my grandfather's 
days, have been prosecuting a still unsettled 
claim to a very large extent of territory at the 
Eastward ? ” 

“ Often," replied Maule,— and it is said that 
a smile came over his face, — “very often,— 
from my father ! ” 

“ This claim," continued Mr. Pyncheon, after 
pausing a moment, as if to consider what the 
carpenter’s smile might mean, “ appeared to be 
on the very verge of a settlement and full allow¬ 
ance, at the period of my grandfather’s decease. 
It was well known, to those in his confidence, 
that he anticipated neither difficulty nor delay. 
Now, Colonel Pyncheon, I need hardly say, 
was a practical man, well acquainted with pub¬ 
lic and private business, and not at all the per¬ 
son to cherish ill-founded hopes, or to attempt 
the following out of an impracticable scheme. 
It is obvious to conclude, therefore, that he had 
grounds, not apparent to his heirs, for his con¬ 
fident anticipation of success in the matter of 
this Eastern claim. In a word, I believe,— 
and my legal advisers coincide in the belief, 

2&3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


which, moreover, is authorized, to a certain ex¬ 
tent, by the family traditions, — that my grand¬ 
father was in possession of some deed, or other 
document, essential to this claim, but which has 
since disappeared.” 

“ Very likely,” said Matthew Maule, — and 
again, it is said, there was a dark smile on his 
face, — “ but what can a poor carpenter have 
to do with the grand affairs of the Pyncheon 
family ? ” 

“ Perhaps nothing,” returned Mr. Pyncheon, 
— cc possibly much ! ” 

H ere ensued a great many words between 
Matthew Maule and the proprietor of the Seven 
Gables, on the subject which the latter had thus 
broached. It seems (although Mr. Pyncheon 
had some hesitation in referring to stories so 
exceedingly absurd in their aspect) that the 
popular belief pointed to some mysterious con¬ 
nection and dependence, existing between the 
family of the Maules and these vast unreal¬ 
ized possessions of the Pyncheons. It was an 
ordinary saying that the old wizard, hanged 
though he was, had obtained the best end of 
the bargain in his contest with Colonel Pyn¬ 
cheon ; inasmuch as he had got possession of 
the great Eastern claim, in exchange for an acre 
or two of garden ground. A very aged woman, 
recently dead, had often used the metaphorical 
expression, in her fireside talk, that miles and 
284 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


miles of the Pyncheon lands had been shovelled 
into Maide’s grave ; which, by the bye, was but 
a very shallow nook, between two rocks, near 
the summit of Gallows Hill. Again, when the 
lawyers were making inquiry for the missing 
document, it was a byword that it would never 
be found, unless in the wizard’s skeleton hand. 
So much weight had the shrewd lawyers assigned 
to these fables, that (but Mr. Pyncheon did not 
see fit to inform the carpenter of the fact) they 
had secretly caused the wizard’s grave to be 
searched. Nothing was discovered, however, 
except that, unaccountably, the right hand of 
the skeleton was gone. 

Now, what was unquestionably important, 
a portion of these popular rumors could be 
traced, though rather doubtfully and indis¬ 
tinctly, to chance words and obscure hints of 
the executed wizard’s son, and the father of 
this present Matthew Maule. And here Mr. 
Pyncheon could bring an item of his own per¬ 
sonal evidence into play. Though but a child 
at the time, he either remembered or fancied 
that Matthew’s father had had some job to per¬ 
form on the day before, or possibly the very 
morning of the Colonel’s decease, in the pri¬ 
vate room where he and the carpenter were at 
this moment talking. Certain papers belong¬ 
ing to Colonel Pyncheon, as his grandson dis- 
285 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


tinctly recollected, had been spread out on the 
table. 

Matthew Maule understood the insinuated 
suspicion. 

“ My father,” he said, — but still there was 
that dark smile, making a riddle of his counte¬ 
nance,— “ my father was an honester man than 
the bloody old Colonel ! Not to get his rights 
back again would he have carried off one of 
those papers! ” 

“ I shall not bandy words with you,” ob¬ 
served the foreign-bred Mr. Pyncheon, with 
haughty composure. “ Nor will it become me 
to resent any rudeness towards either my grand¬ 
father or myself. A gentleman, before seeking 
intercourse with a person of your station and 
habits, will first consider whether the urgency 
of the end may compensate for the disagreea¬ 
bleness of the means. It does so in the pre¬ 
sent instance.” 

He then renewed the conversation, and made 
great pecuniary offers to the carpenter, in case 
the latter should give information leading to 
the discovery of the lost document, and the 
consequent success of the Eastern claim. For 
a long time Matthew Maule is said to have 
turned a cold ear to these propositions. At 
last, however, with a strange kind of laugh, he 
inquired whether Mr. Pyncheon would make 
over to him the old wizard’s homestead ground, 
286 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


together with the House of the Seven Gables, 
now standing on it, in requital of the docu¬ 
mentary evidence so urgently required. 

The wild, chimney-corner legend (which, 
without copying all its extravagances, my nar¬ 
rative essentially follows) here gives an account 
of some very strange behavior on the part of 
Colonel Pyncheon’s portrait. This picture, it 
must be understood, was supposed to be so in¬ 
timately connected with the fate of the house, 
and so magically built into its walls, that, if 
once it should be removed, that very instant 
the whole edifice would come thundering down 
in a heap of dusty ruin. All through the fore¬ 
going conversation between Mr. Pyncheon and 
the carpenter, the portrait had been frowning, 
clenching its fist, and giving many such proofs 
of excessive discomposure, but without attract¬ 
ing the notice of either of the two colloquists. 
And finally, at Matthew Maule’s audacious 
suggestion of a transfer of the seven-gabled 
structure, the ghostly portrait is averred to 
have lost all patience, and to have shown itself 
on the point of descending bodily from its 
frame. But such incredible incidents are merely 
to be mentioned aside. 

“ Give up this house ! ” exclaimed Mr. Pyn¬ 
cheon, in amazement at the proposal. “Were 
I to do so, my grandfather would not rest quiet 
in his grave ! ” 


287 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“He never has, if all stories are true,” re¬ 
marked the carpenter composedly. “ But that 
matter concerns his grandson more than it does 
Matthew Maule. I have no other terms to 
propose.” 

Impossible as he at first thought it to com¬ 
ply with Maule’s conditions, still, on a second 
glance, Mr. Pyncheon was of opinion that they 
might at least be made matter of discussion. 
He himself had no personal attachment for the 
house, nor any pleasant associations connected 
with his childish residence in it. On the con¬ 
trary, after seven-and-thirty years, the presence 
of his dead grandfather seemed still to pervade 
it, as on that morning when the affrighted boy 
had beheld him, with so ghastly an aspect, stif¬ 
fening in his chair. His long abode in foreign 
parts, moreover, and familiarity with many of 
the castles and ancestral halls of England, and 
the marble palaces of Italy, had caused him to 
look contemptuously at the House of the Seven 
Gables, whether in point of splendor or con¬ 
venience. It was a mansion exceedingly inad¬ 
equate to the style of living which it would be 
incumbent on Mr. Pyncheon to support, after 
realizing his territorial rights. His steward 
might deign to occupy it, but never, certainly, 
the great landed proprietor himself. In the 
event of success, indeed, it was his purpose to 
return to England ; nor, to say the truth, would 
288 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


he recently have quitted that more congenial 
home, had not his own fortune, as well as his 
deceased wife’s, begun to give symptoms of 
exhaustion. The Eastern claim once fairly set¬ 
tled, and put upon the firm basis of actual pos¬ 
session, Mr. Pyncheon’s property—to be mea¬ 
sured by miles, not acres — would be worth an 
earldom, and would reasonably entitle him to 
solicit, or enable him to purchase, that elevated 
dignity from the British monarch. Lord Pyn- 
cheon ! — or the Earl of Waldo ! — how could 
such a magnate be expected to contract his 
grandeur within the pitiful compass of seven 
shingled gables ? 

In short, on an enlarged view of the business, 
the carpenter’s terms appeared so ridiculously 
easy that Mr. Pyncheon could scarcely forbear 
laughing in his face. He was quite ashamed, 
after the foregoing reflections, to propose any 
diminution of so moderate a recompense for 
the immense service to be rendered. 

“ I consent to your proposition, Maule,” 
cried he. “ Put me in possession of the docu¬ 
ment essential to establish my rights, and the 
House of the Seven Gables is your own ! ” 

According to some versions of the story, a 
regular contract to the above effect was drawn 
up by a lawyer, and signed and sealed in the 
presence of witnesses. Others say that Mat¬ 
thew Maule was contented with a private writ- 
289 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

ten agreement, in which Mr. Pyncheon pledged 
his honor and integrity to the fulfilment of the 
terms concluded upon. The gentleman then 
ordered wine, which he and the carpenter drank 
together, in confirmation of their bargain. Dur¬ 
ing the whole preceding discussion and subse¬ 
quent formalities, the old Puritan’s portrait 
seems to have persisted in its shadowy gestures 
of disapproval; but without effect, except that, 
as Mr. Pyncheon set down the emptied glass, 
he thought he beheld his grandfather frown. 

“ This sherry is too potent a wine for me ; 
it has affected my brain already,” he observed, 
after a somewhat startled look at the picture. 
“ On returning to Europe, I shall confine my¬ 
self to the more delicate vintages of Italy and 
France, the best of which will not bear trans¬ 
portation.” 

“ My Lord Pyncheon may drink what wine 
he will, and wherever he pleases,” replied the 
carpenter, as if he had been privy to Mr. Pyn- 
cheon’s ambitious projects. “ But first, sir, if 
you desire tidings of this lost document, I must 
crave the favor of a little talk with your fair 
daughter Alice.” 

“ You are mad, Maule ! ” exclaimed Mr. 
Pyncheon haughtily ; and now, at last, there 
was anger mixed up with his pride. “ What 
can my daughter have to do with a business 
like this ? ” 


290 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


Indeed, at this new demand on the carpen¬ 
ter's part, the proprietor of the Seven Gables 
was even more thunderstruck than at the cool 
proposition to surrender his house. There was, 
at least, an assignable motive for the first stip¬ 
ulation ; there appeared to be none whatever 
for the last. Nevertheless, Matthew Maule 
sturdily insisted on the young lady being sum¬ 
moned, and even gave her father to understand, 
in a mysterious kind of explanation, — which 
made the matter considerably darker than it 
looked before, — that the only chance of acquir¬ 
ing the requisite knowledge was through the 
clear, crystal medium of a pure and virgin in¬ 
telligence, like that of the fair Alice. Not to 
encumber our story with Mr. Pyncheon’s scru¬ 
ples, whether of conscience, pride, or fatherly 
affection, he at length ordered his daughter to 
be called. He well knew that she was in her 
chamber, and engaged in no occupation that 
could not readily be laid aside ; for, as it hap¬ 
pened, ever since Alice's name had been spoken, 
both her father and the carpenter had heard the 
sad and sweet music of her harpsichord, and the 
airier melancholy of her accompanying voice. 

So Alice Pyncheon was summoned, and ap¬ 
peared. A portrait of this young lady, painted 
by a Venetian artist, and left by her father in 
England, is said to have fallen into the hands 
of the present Duke of Devonshire, and to be 
291 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


now preserved at Chatsworth ; not on account 
of any associations with the original, but for its 
value as a picture, and the high character of 
beauty in the countenance. If ever there was 
a lady born, and set apart from the world’s vul¬ 
gar mass by a certain gentle and cold stateliness, 
it was this very Alice Pyncheon. Yet there was 
the womanly mixture in her; the tenderness, or, 
at least, the tender capabilities. For the sake of 
that redeeming quality, a man of generous na¬ 
ture would have forgiven all her pride, and have 
been content, almost, to lie down in her path, 
and let Alice set her slender foot upon his heart. 
All that he would have required was simply the 
acknowledgment that he was indeed a man, and 
a fellow being, moulded of the same elements 
as she. 

As Alice came into the room, her eyes fell 
upon the carpenter, who was standing near its 
centre, clad in a green woollen jacket, a pair of 
loose breeches, open at the knees, and with a 
long pocket for his rule, the end of which pro¬ 
truded ; it was as proper a mark of the artisan’s 
calling as Mr. Pyncheon’s full-dress sword of 
that gentleman’s aristocratic pretensions. A 
glow of artistic approval brightened over Alice 
Pyncheon’s face; she was struck with admira¬ 
tion— which she made no attempt to conceal 
— of the remarkable comeliness, strength, and 
energy of Maule’s figure. But that admiring 
292 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


glance (which most other men, perhaps, would 
have cherished as a sweet recollection all through 
life) the carpenter never forgave. It must have 
been the devil himself that made Maule so sub¬ 
tile in his perception. 

“ Does the girl look at me as if I were a 
brute beast ? ” thought he, setting his teeth. 
“She shall know whether I have a human 
spirit; and the worse for her, if it prove stronger 
than her own ! ” 

“ My father, you sent for me,” said Alice, in 
her sweet and harp-like voice. “ But, if you 
have business with this young man, pray let me 
go again. You know I do not love this room, 
in spite of that Claude, with which you try to 
bring back sunny recollections.” 

“ Stay a moment, young lady, if you please ! ” 
said Matthew Maule. “ My business with your 
father is over. With yourself, it is now to 
begin ! ” 

Alice looked towards her father, in surprise 
and inquiry. 

“ Yes, Alice,” said Mr. Pyncheon, with some 
disturbance and confusion. “ This young man 
— his name is Matthew Maule — professes, so 
far as I can understand him, to be able to dis¬ 
cover, through your means, a certain paper or 
parchment, which was missing long before your 
birth. The importance of the document in 
question renders it advisable to neglect no pos- 
293 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


sible, even if improbable, method of regaining it. 
You will therefore oblige me, my dear Alice, by 
answering this person's inquiries, and comply¬ 
ing with his lawful and reasonable requests, so 
far as they may appear to have the aforesaid 
object in view. As I shall remain in the room, 
you need apprehend no rude nor unbecoming 
deportment, on the young man's part; and, at 
your slightest wish, of course, the investigation, 
or whatever we may call it, shall immediately 
be broken off." 

“ Mistress Alice Pyncheon," remarked Mat¬ 
thew Maule, with the utmost deference, but 
yet a half-hidden sarcasm in his look and tone, 
<f will no doubt feel herself quite safe in her 
father's presence, and under his all-sufficient 
protection." 

“ I certainly shall entertain no manner of 
apprehension, with my father at hand," said 
Alice with maidenly dignity. “ Neither do 1 
conceive that a lady, while true to herself, can 
have aught to fear from whomsoever, or in any 
circumstances ! " 

Poor Alice ! By what unhappy impulse did 
she thus put herself at once on terms of defi¬ 
ance against a strength which she could not 
estimate ? 

cc Then, Mistress Alice," said Matthew 
Maule, handing a chair, — gracefully enough, 
for a craftsman, — cc will it please you only to 
294 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


sit down, and do me the favor (though alto¬ 
gether beyond a poor carpenter's deserts) to fix 
your eyes on mine! ” 

Alice complied. She was very proud. Set¬ 
ting aside all advantages of rank, this fair girl 
deemed herself conscious of a power — com¬ 
bined of beauty, high, unsullied purity, and the 
preservative force of womanhood — that could 
make her sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed 
by treachery within. She instinctively knew, 
it may be, that some sinister or evil potency 
was now striving to pass her barriers ; nor would 
she decline the contest. So Alice put woman's 
might against man’s might; a match not often 
equal on the part of woman. 

Her father meanwhile had turned away, and 
seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a land¬ 
scape by Claude, where a shadowy and sun- 
streaked vista penetrated so remotely into an 
ancient wood, that it would have been no won¬ 
der if his fancy had lost itself in the picture’s 
bewildering depths. But, in truth, the picture 
was no more to him at that moment than the 
blank wall against which it hung. His mind 
was haunted with the many and strange tales 
which he had heard, attributing mysterious if 
not supernatural endowments to these Maules, 
as well the grandson here present as his two 
immediate ancestors. Mr. Pyncheon's long resi¬ 
dence abroad, and intercourse with men of wit 
295 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and fashion, — courtiers, worldlings, and free¬ 
thinkers, — had done much towards obliterat¬ 
ing the grim Puritan superstitions, which no 
man of New England birth at that early period 
could entirely escape. But, on the other hand, 
had not a whole community believed Maule's 
grandfather to be a wizard ? Had not the crime 
been proved ? Had not the wizard died for it ? 
Had he not bequeathed a legacy of hatred 
against the Pyncheons to this only grandson, 
who, as it appeared, was now about to exercise 
a subtle influence over the daughter of his 
enemy's house ? Might not this influence be 
the same that was called witchcraft ? 

Turning half around, he caught a glimpse of 
Maule's figure in the looking-glass. At some 
paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in the 
air, the carpenter made a gesture as if directing 
downward a slow, ponderous, and invisible 
weight upon the maiden. 

“ Stay, Maule ! ” exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, 
stepping forward. “ I forbid your proceeding 
further! ” 

“ Pray, my dear father, do not interrupt the 
young man,” said Alice, without changing her 
position. “ His efforts, I assure you, will prove 
very harmless.” 

Again Mr. Pyncheon turned his eyes to¬ 
wards the Claude. It was then his daughter's 
will, in opposition to his own, that the experi- 
296 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


ment should be fully tried. Henceforth, there¬ 
fore, he did but consent, not urge it. And 
was it not for her sake far more than for his 
own that he desired its success ? That lost 
parchment once restored, the beautiful Alice 
Pyncheon, with the rich dowry which he could 
then bestow* might wed an English duke or a 
German reigning-prince, instead of some New 
England clergyman or lawyer! At the thought, 
the ambitious father almost consented, in his 
heart, that, if the devil's power were needed to 
the accomplishment of this great object, Maule 
might evoke him. Alice's own purity would 
be her safeguard. 

With his mind full of imaginary magnifi¬ 
cence, Mr. Pyncheon heard a half-uttered ex¬ 
clamation from his daughter. It was very faint 
and low ; so indistinct that there seemed but 
half a will to shape out the words, and too un¬ 
defined a purport to be intelligible. Yet it was 
a call for help ! — his conscience never doubted 
it; — and, little more than a whisper to his ear, 
it was a dismal shriek, and long reechoed so, in 
the region round his heart ! But this time the 
father did not turn. 

After a further interval, Maule spoke. 

“ Behold your daughter ! ” said he. 

Mr. Pyncheon came hastily forward. The 
carpenter was standing erect in front of Alice's 
chair, and pointing his finger towards the 
297 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

maiden with an expression of triumphant power, 
the limits of which could not be defined, as, 
indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the 
unseen and the infinite. Alice sat in an atti¬ 
tude of profound repose, with the long brown 
lashes drooping over her eyes. 

“ There she is ! ” said the carpenter. “ Speak 
to her ! ” 

“ Alice! My daughter ! ” exclaimed Mr. 
Pyncheon. “ My own Alice ! ” 

She did not stir. 

“ Louder ! ” said Maule, smiling. 

“Alice! Awake ! ” cried her father. “It 
troubles me to see you thus ! Awake ! ” 

He spoke loudly, with terror in his voice, and 
close to that delicate ear which had always been 
so sensitive to every discord. But the sound 
evidently reached her not. It is indescribable 
what a sense of remote, dim, unattainable dis¬ 
tance betwixt himself and Alice was impressed 
on the father by this impossibility of reaching 
her with his voice. 

“ Best touch her! ” said Matthew Maule. 
“ Shake the girl, and roughly, too ! My hands 
are hardened with too much use of axe, saw, and 
plane, — else I might help you ! ” 

Mr. Pyncheon took her hand, and pressed 
it with the earnestness of startled emotion. He 
kissed her, with so great a heart-throb in the 
kiss, that he thought she must needs feel it. 

298 


ALICE PYNCHEON 


Then, in a gust of anger at her insensibility, he 
shook her maiden form with a violence which, 
the next moment, it affrighted him to remem¬ 
ber. He withdrew his encircling arms, and 
Alice—whose figure, though flexible, had been 
wholly impassive — relapsed into the same atti¬ 
tude as before these attempts to arouse her. 
Maule having shifted his position, her face was 
turned towards him slightly, but with what 
seemed to be a reference of her very slumber 
to his guidance. 

Then it was a strange sight to behold how 
the man of conventionalities shook the pow¬ 
der out of his periwig ; how the reserved and 
stately gentleman forgot his dignity; how the 
gold-embroidered waistcoat flickered and glis¬ 
tened in the firelight with the convulsion of 
rage, terror, and sorrow in the human heart 
that was beating under it. 

“ Villain ! ” cried Mr. Pyncheon, shaking 
his clenched fist at Maule. “ You and the fiend 
together have robbed me of my daughter! 
Give her back, spawn of the old wizard, or you 
shall climb Gallows Hill in your grandfather’s 
footsteps ! ” 

“ Softly, Mr. Pyncheon ! ” said the carpen¬ 
ter with scornful composure. “ Softly, an it 
please your worship, else you will spoil those 
rich lace ruffles at your wrists ! Is it my crime 
if you have sold your daughter for the mere 
299 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


hope of getting a sheet of yellow parchment 
into your clutch ? There sits Mistress Alice 
quietly asleep ! Now let Matthew Maule try 
whether she be as proud as the carpenter found 
her awhile since. ,, 

He spoke, and Alice responded, with a soft, 
subdued, inward acquiescence, and a bending 
of her form towards him, like the flame of a 
torch when it indicates a gentle draught of air. 
He beckoned with his hand, and, rising from 
her chair, — blindly, but undoubtingly, as tend¬ 
ing to her sure and inevitable centre, — the 
proud Alice approached him. He waved her 
back, and, retreating, Alice sank again into her 
seat. 

“ She is mine ! ” said Matthew Maule. 
“ Mine, by the right of the strongest spirit! ” 

In the further progress of the legend, there 
is a long, grotesque, and occasionally awe-strik¬ 
ing account of the carpenter’s incantations (if 
so they are to be called), with a view of discov¬ 
ering the lost document. It appears to have 
been his object to convert the mind of Alice 
into a kind of telescopic medium, through 
which Mr. Pyncheon and himself might obtain 
a glimpse into the spiritual world. He suc¬ 
ceeded, accordingly, in holding an imperfect 
sort of intercourse, at one remove, with the 
departed personages in whose custody the so 
much valued secret had been carried beyond the 
300 


ALICE PYNCHEON 

precincts of earth. During her trance, Alice 
described three figures as being present to her 
spiritualized perception. One was an aged, 
dignified, stern-looking gentleman, clad as for 
a solemn festival in grave and costly attire, but 
with a great blood-stain on his richly wrought 
band; the second, an aged man, meanly dressed, 
with a dark and malign countenance, and a 
broken halter about his neck ; the third, a per¬ 
son not so advanced in life as the former two, 
but beyond the middle age, wearing a coarse 
woollen tunic and leather breeches, and with a 
carpenter’s rule sticking out of his side pocket. 
These three visionary characters possessed a 
mutual knowledge of the missing document. 
One of them, in truth, — it was he with the 
blood-stain on his band, — seemed, unless his 
gestures were misunderstood, to hold the parch¬ 
ment in his immediate keeping, but was pre¬ 
vented by his two partners in the mystery from 
disburdening himself of the trust. Finally, 
when he showed a purpose of shouting forth 
the secret loudly enough to be heard from 
his own sphere into that of mortals, his com¬ 
panions struggled with him, and pressed their 
hands over his mouth ; and forthwith — whe¬ 
ther that he were choked by it, or that the 
secret itself was of a crimson hue — there was a 
fresh flow of blood upon his band. Upon this, 
the two meanly dressed figures mocked and 
301 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


jeered at the much-abashed old dignitary, and 
pointed their fingers at the stain. 

At this juncture, Maule turned to Mr. Pyn- 
cheon. 

“ It will never be allowed,” said he. “ The 
custody of this secret, that would so enrich his 
heirs, makes part of your grandfather’s retri¬ 
bution. He must choke with it until it is 
no longer of any value. And keep you the 
House of the Seven Gables ! It is too dear 
bought an inheritance, and too heavy with the 
curse upon it, to be shifted yet awhile from the 
Colonel’s posterity ! ” 

Mr. Pyncheon tried to speak, but — what 
with fear and passion — could make only a 
gurgling murmur in his throat. The carpenter 
smiled. 

“ Aha, worshipful sir ! — so you have old 
Maule’s blood to drink ! ” said he jeeringly. 

“ Fiend in man’s shape ! why dost thou keep 
dominion over my child ? ” cried Mr. Pyn¬ 
cheon, when his choked utterance could make 
way. “ Give me back my daughter ! Then 
go thy ways; and may we never meet again ! ” 

“Your daughter!” said Matthew Maule. 
“ Why, she is fairly mine ! Nevertheless, not 
to be too hard with fair Mistress Alice, I will 
leave her in your keeping ; but I do not war¬ 
rant you that she shall never have occasion to 
remember Maule, the carpenter.” 

302 


ALICE PYNCHEON 

He waved his hands with an upward motion ; 
and, after a few repetitions of similar gestures, 
the beautiful Alice Pyncheon awoke from her 
strange trance. She awoke without the slight¬ 
est recollection of her visionary experience ; but 
as one losing herself in a momentary reverie, 
and returning to the consciousness of actual life, 
in almost as brief an interval as the down-sink¬ 
ing flame of the hearth should quiver again up 
the chimney. On recognizing Matthew Maule, 
she assumed an air of somewhat cold but gentle 
dignity, the rather, as there was a certain pecul¬ 
iar smile on the carpenter's visage that stirred 
the native pride of the fair Alice. So ended, 
for that time, the quest for the lost title-deed 
of the Pyncheon territory at the Eastward ; nor, 
though often subsequently renewed, has it ever 
yet befallen a Pyncheon to set his eye upon 
that parchment. 

But, alas for the beautiful, the gentle, yet 
too haughty Alice! A power that she little 
dreamed of had laid its grasp upon her maiden 
soul. A will, most unlike her own, constrained 
her to do its grotesque and fantastic bidding. 
Her father, as it proved, had martyred his poor 
child to an inordinate desire for measuring his 
land by miles instead of acres. And, therefore, 
while Alice Pyncheon lived, she was Maule’s 
slave, in a bondage more humiliating, a thou¬ 
sand-fold, than that which binds its chain 
3°3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


around the body. Seated by his humble fire¬ 
side, Maule had but to wave his hand ; and, 
wherever the proud lady chanced to be, — 
whether in her chamber, or entertaining her 
father’s stately guests, or worshipping at church, 
— whatever her place or occupation, her spirit 
passed from beneath her own control, and 
bowed itself to Maule. “ Alice, laugh ! ” — the 
carpenter, beside his hearth, would say ; or per¬ 
haps intensely will it, without a spoken word. 
And, even were it prayer-time, or at a funeral, 
Alice must break into wild laughter. “ Alice, 
be sad ! ” — and, at the instant, down would 
come her tears, quenching all the mirth of those 
around her like sudden rain upon a bonfire. 
<c Alice, dance ! ” — and dance she would, not 
in such court-like measures as she had learned 
abroad, but some high-paced jig, or hop-skip 
rigadoon, befitting the brisk lasses at a rustic 
merry-making. It seemed to be Maule’s im¬ 
pulse, not to ruin Alice, nor to visit her with 
any black or gigantic mischief, which would 
have crowned her sorrows with the grace of 
tragedy, but to wreak a low, ungenerous scorn 
upon her. Thus all the dignity of life was lost. 
She felt herself too much abased, and longed to 
change natures with some worm ! 

One evening, at a bridal party (but not her 
own; for, so lost from self-control, she would 
3°4 


ALICE PYNCHEON 

have deemed it sin to marry), poor Alice was 
beckoned forth by her unseen despot, and con¬ 
strained, in her gossamer white dress and satin 
slippers, to hasten along the street to the mean 
dwelling of a laboring-man. There was laughter 
and good cheer within ; for Matthew Maule, 
that night, was to wed the laborer’s daughter, 
and had summoned proud Alice Pyncheon to 
wait upon his bride. And so she did; and 
when the twain were one, Alice awoke out of 
her enchanted sleep. Yet, no longer proud,— 
humbly, and with a smile all steeped in sadness, 
— she kissed Maule’s wife, and went her way. 
It was an inclement night; the southeast wind 
drove the mingled snow and rain into her thinly 
sheltered bosom ; her satin slippers were wet 
through and through, as she trod the muddy 
sidewalks. The next day a cold; soon, a set¬ 
tled cough ; anon, a hectic cheek, a wasted 
form, that sat beside the harpsichord, and filled 
the house with music! Music in which a strain 
of the heavenly choristers was echoed ! Oh, 
joy! For Alice had borne her last humiliation ! 
Oh, greater joy ! For Alice was penitent of 
her one earthly sin, and proud no more ! 

The Pyncheons made a great funeral for 
Alice. The kith and kin were there, and the 
whole respectability of the town besides. But, 
last in the procession, came Matthew Maule, 
3°5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

gnashing his teeth, as if he would have bitten 
his own heart in twain, — the darkest and woe- 
fullest man that ever walked behind a corpse ! 
He meant to humble Alice, not to kill her; but 
he had taken a woman’s delicate soul into his 
rude gripe, to play with — and she was dead! 
306 


XIV 


phoebe’s good-by 

H OLGRAVE, plunging into his tale 
with the energy and absorption natu¬ 
ral to a young author, had given a 
good deal of action to the parts capable of be¬ 
ing developed and exemplified in that manner. 
He now observed that a certain remarkable 
drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which the 
reader possibly feels himself affected) had been 
flung over the senses of his auditress. It was 
the effect, unquestionably, of the mystic gestic¬ 
ulations by which he had sought to bring 
bodily before Phoebe’s perception the figure 
of the mesmerizing carpenter. With the lids 
drooping over her eyes, — now lifted for an 
instant, and drawn down again as with leaden 
weights, — she leaned slightly towards him, and 
seemed almost to regulate her breath by his. 
Holgrave gazed at her, as he rolled up his 
manuscript, and recognized an incipient stage 
of that curious psychological condition which, 
as he had himself told Phoebe, he possessed 
more than an ordinary faculty of producing. 
A veil was beginning to be muffled about her, 
3 °7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


in which she could behold only him, and live 
only in his thoughts and emotions. His glance, 
as he fastened it on the young girl, grew invol¬ 
untarily more concentrated; in his attitude there 
was the consciousness of power, investing his 
hardly mature figure with a dignity that did 
not belong to its physical manifestation. It 
was evident, that, with but one wave of his 
hand and a corresponding effort of his will, he 
could complete his mastery over Phoebe's yet 
free and virgin spirit: he could establish an in¬ 
fluence over this good, pure, and simple child, 
as dangerous, and perhaps as disastrous, as that 
which the carpenter of his legend had acquired 
and exercised over the ill-fated Alice. 

To a disposition like Holgrave’s, at once 
speculative and active, there is no temptation 
so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire 
over the human spirit; nor any idea more 
seductive to a young man than to become the 
arbiter of a young girl’s destiny. Let us, there¬ 
fore,— whatever his defects of nature and edu¬ 
cation, and in spite of his scorn for creeds and 
institutions, — concede to the daguerreotypist 
the rare and high quality of reverence for 
another’s individuality. Let us allow him in¬ 
tegrity, also, forever after to be confided in; 
since he forbade himself to twine that one link 
more which might have rendered his spell over 
Phoebe indissoluble. 


3°8 


PHCEBE’S GOOD-BY 


He made a slight gesture upward with his 
hand. 

“You really mortify me, my dear Miss 
Phoebe! ” he exclaimed, smiling half sarcasti¬ 
cally at her. “ My poor story, it is but too 
evident, will never do for Godey or Graham! 
Only think of your falling asleep at what I 
hoped the newspaper critics would pronounce 
a most brilliant, powerful, imaginative, pathetic, 
and original winding up ! Well, the manuscript 
must serve to light lamps with ; — i£ indeed, 
being so imbued with my gentle dulness, it is 
any longer capable of flame ! ” 

“ Me asleep! How can you say so ? ” an¬ 
swered Phoebe, as unconscious of the crisis 
through which she had passed as an infant 
of the precipice to the verge of* which it has 
rolled. “No, no! I consider myself as hav¬ 
ing been very attentive; and, though I don't 
remember the incidents quite distinctly, yet I 
have an impression of a vast deal of trouble 
and calamity, — so, no doubt, the story will 
prove exceedingly attractive." 

By this time the sun had gone down, and 
was tinting the clouds towards the zenith with 
those bright hues which are not seen there until 
some time after sunset, and when the horizon 
has quite lost its richer brilliancy. The moon, 
too, which had long been climbing overhead, 
and unobtrusively melting its disk into the 
3°9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


azure,— like an ambitious demagogue, who 
hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the 
prevalent hue of popular sentiment, — now 
began to shine out, broad and oval, in its 
middle pathway. These silvery beams were 
already powerful enough to change the charac¬ 
ter of the lingering daylight. They softened 
and embellished the aspect of the old house; 
although the shadows fell deeper into the angles 
of its many gables, and lay brooding under the 
projecting story, and within the half-open door. 
With the lapse of every moment, the garden 
grew more picturesque; the fruit-trees, shrub¬ 
bery, and flower bushes had a dark obscurity 
among them. The commonplace characteris¬ 
tics— which, at noontide, it seemed to have 
taken a century of sordid life to accumulate — 
were now transfigured by a charm of romance. 
A hundred mysterious years were whispering 
among the leaves, whenever the slight sea- 
breeze found its way thither and stirred them. 
Through the foliage that roofed the little sum¬ 
mer-house the moonlight flickered to and fro, 
and fell silvery white on the dark floor, the 
table, and the circular bench, with a continual 
shift and play, according as the chinks and way¬ 
ward crevices among the twigs admitted or shut 
out the glimmer. 

So sweetly cool was the atmosphere, after all 
the feverish day, that the summer eve might be 
310 


PHCEBE’S GOOD-BY 


fancied as sprinkling dews and liquid moonlight, 
with a dash of icy temper in them, out of a sil¬ 
ver vase. Here and there, a few drops of this 
freshness were scattered on a human heart, and 
gave it youth again, and sympathy with the 
eternal youth of nature. The artist chanced to 
be one on whom the reviving influence fell. It 
made him feel — what he sometimes almost for¬ 
got, thrust so early as he had been into the rude 
struggle of man with man — how youthful he 
still was. 

“ It seems to me,” he observed, “ that I never 
watched the coming of so beautiful an eve, and 
never felt anything so very much like happiness 
as at this moment. After all, what a good world 
we live in! How good, and beautiful ! How 
young it is, too, with nothing really rotten or 
age-worn in it! This old house, for example, 
which sometimes has positively oppressed my 
breath with its smell of decaying timber ! And 
this garden, where the black mould always clings 
to my spade, as if I were a sexton delving in a 
graveyard ! Could I keep the feeling that now 
possesses me, the garden would every day be 
virgin soil, with the earth’s first freshness in the 
flavor of its beans and squashes ; and the house ! 
— it would be like a bower in Eden, blossom¬ 
ing with the earliest roses that God ever made. 
Moonlight, and the sentiment in man’s heart 
responsive to it, are the greatest of renovators 
3 11 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and reformers. And all other reform and reno¬ 
vation, I suppose, will prove to be no better 
than moonshine ! ” 

“ I have been happier than I am now ; at 
least, much gayer,” said Phoebe thoughtfully. 
“Yet I am sensible of a great charm in this 
brightening moonlight; and I love to watch 
how the day, tired as it is, lags away reluctantly, 
and hates to be called yesterday so soon. I 
never cared much about moonlight before. 
What is there, I wonder, so beautiful in it, 
to-night ? ” 

cc And you have never felt it before ? ” in¬ 
quired the artist, looking earnestly at the girl 
through the twilight. 

“ Never,” answered Phoebe ; “ and life does 
not look the same, now that I have felt it so. 
It seems as if I had looked at everything, hith¬ 
erto, in broad daylight, or else in the ruddy 
light of a cheerful fire, glimmering and dancing 
through a room. Ah, poor me ! ” she added, 
with a half-melancholy laugh. “ I shall never 
be so merry as before I knew Cousin Hepzibah 
and poor Cousin Clifford. I have grown a great 
deal older, in this little time. Older, and, I 
hope, wiser, and, — not exactly sadder, — but, 
certainly, with not half so much lightness in my 
spirits ! I have given them my sunshine, and 
have been glad to give it; but, of course, I 
3 12 


PHOEBE’S GOOD-BY 


cannot both give and keep it. They are wel¬ 
come, notwithstanding! ” 

“ You have lost nothing, Phoebe, worth keep¬ 
ing, nor which it was possible to keep,” said 
Holgrave after a pause. “ Our first youth is 
of no value; for we are never conscious of it 
until after it is gone. But sometimes — always, 
I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate 
— there comes a sense of second youth, gush¬ 
ing out of the heart's joy at being in love; or, 
possibly, it may come to crown some other 
grand festival in life, if any other such there be. 
This bemoaning of one's self (as you do now) 
over the first, careless, shallow gayety of youth 
departed, and this profound happiness at youth 
regained, — so much deeper and richer than 
that we lost, — are essential to the soul's de¬ 
velopment. In some cases, the two states come 
almost simultaneously, and mingle the sadness 
and the rapture in one mysterious emotion.” 

“ I hardly think I understand you,” said 
Phoebe. 

“No wonder,” replied Holgrave, smiling; 
“ for I have told you a secret which I hardly 
began to know before I found myself giving it 
utterance. Remember it, however; and when 
the truth becomes clear to you, then think of 
this moonlight scene ! ” 

“It is entirely moonlight now, except only 

3*3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

a little flush of faint crimson, upward from 
the west, between those buildings,” remarked 
Phoebe. “ I must go in. Cousin Hepzibah is 
not quick at figures, and will give herself a head¬ 
ache over the day's accounts, unless I help her.” 
But Holgrave detained her a little longer. 

“ Miss Hepzibah tells me,” observed he, 
<c that you return to the country in a few days.” 

cc Yes, but only for a little while,” answered 
Phoebe; “ for I look upon this as my present 
home. I go to make a few arrangements, and to 
take a more deliberate leave of my mother and 
friends. It is pleasant to live where one is much 
desired and very useful; and I think I may have 
the satisfaction of feeling myself so here.” 

“ You surely may, and more than you ima¬ 
gine,” said the artist. “ Whatever health, com¬ 
fort, and natural life exists in the house is 
embodied in your person. These blessings 
came along with you, and will vanish when you 
leave the threshold. Miss Hepzibah, by seclud¬ 
ing herself from society, has lost all true rela¬ 
tion with it, and is, in fact, dead; although she 
galvanizes herself into a semblance of life, and 
stands behind her counter, afflicting the world 
with a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your 
poor cousin Clifford is another dead and long- 
buried person, on whom the governor and coun¬ 
cil have wrought a necromantic miracle. I 
should not wonder if he were to crumble away, 
3H 


PHCEBE’S GOOD-BY 


some morning, after you are gone, and nothing 
be seen of him more, except a heap of dust. 
Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will lose what little 
flexibility she has. They both exist by you.” 

“ I should be very sorry to think so,” an¬ 
swered Phoebe gravely. “ But it is true that 
my small abilities were precisely what they 
needed ; and I have a real interest in their wel¬ 
fare,— an odd kind of motherly sentiment,— 
which I wish you would not laugh at! And 
let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am 
sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish 
them well or ill.” 

“ Undoubtedly,” said the daguerreotypist, 
“ I do feel an interest in this antiquated, pov¬ 
erty-stricken old maiden lady, and this degraded 
and shattered gentleman, — this abortive lover 
of the beautiful. A kindly interest, too, help¬ 
less old children that they are! But you have 
no conception what a different kind of heart 
mine is from your own. It is not my impulse, 
as regards these two individuals, either to help 
or hinder ; but to look on, to analyze, to ex¬ 
plain matters to myself, and to comprehend the 
drama which, for almost two hundred years, has 
been dragging its slow length over the ground 
where you and I now tread. If permitted to 
witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moral 
satisfaction from it, go matters how they may. 
There is a conviction within me that the end 
3*5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


draws nigh. But, though Providence sent you 
hither to help, and sends me only as a privi¬ 
leged and meet spectator, I pledge myself to 
lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I 
can ! ” 

“ I wish you would speak more plainly,” 
cried Phoebe, perplexed and displeased ; <c and, 
above all, that you would feel more like a Chris¬ 
tian and a human being ! How is it possible 
to see people in distress without desiring, more 
than anything else, to help and comfort them ? 
You talk as if this old house were a theatre ; 
and you seem to look at Hepzibah’s and Clif¬ 
ford’s misfortunes, and those of generations 
before them, as a tragedy, such as I have seen 
acted in the hall of a country hotel, only the 
present one appears to be played exclusively 
for your amusement. I do not like this. The 
play costs the performers too much, and the 
audience is too cold-hearted.” 

“ You are severe,” said Holgrave, compelled 
to recognize a degree of truth in this piquant 
sketch of his own mood. 

“ And then,” continued Phoebe, cc what can 
you mean by your conviction, which you tell 
me of, that the end is drawing near ? Do you 
know of any new trouble hanging over my 
poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, and I 
will not leave them ! ” 

“ Forgive me, Phoebe !” said the daguerreo- 
3 l6 


PHOEBE’S GOOD-BY 


typist, holding out his hand, to which the girl 
was constrained to yield her own. “ I am 
somewhat of a mystic, it must be confessed. 
The tendency is in my blood, together with the 
faculty of mesmerism, which might have brought 
me to Gallows Hill, in the good old times of 
witchcraft. Believe me, if I were really aware 
of any secret, the disclosure of which would 
benefit your friends, — who are my own friends, 
likewise, — you should learn it before we part. 
But I have no such knowledge.” 

“ You hold something back ! ” said Phoebe. 

“ Nothing, — no secrets but my own,” an¬ 
swered Holgrave. cc I can perceive, indeed, 
that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on 
Clifford, in whose ruin he had so large a share. 
His motives and intentions, however, are a mys¬ 
tery to me. He is a determined and relentless 
man, with the genuine character of an inquisi¬ 
tor ; and had he any object to gain by putting 
Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he 
would wrench his joints from their sockets, in 
order to accomplish it. But, so wealthy and 
eminent as he is, — so powerful in his own 
strength, and in the support of society on all 
sides, — what can Judge Pyncheon have to 
hope or fear from the imbecile, branded, half- 
torpid Clifford ? ” 

“ Yet,” urged Phoebe, “ you did speak as if 
misfortune were impending ! ” 

3 X 7 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Oh, that was because I am morbid ! ” re¬ 
plied the artist. “ My mind has a twist aside, 
like almost everybody's mind, except your own. 
Moreover, it is so strange to find myself an 
inmate of this old Pyncheon House, and sitting 
in this old garden — (hark, how Maule’s well 
is murmuring!) — that, were it only for this 
one circumstance, I cannot help fancying that 
Destiny is arranging its fifth act for a catas¬ 
trophe.” 

“ There ! ” cried Phoebe with renewed vexa¬ 
tion ; for she was by nature as hostile to mys¬ 
tery as the sunshine to a dark corner. “ You 
puzzle me more than ever! ” 

“Then let us part friends! ” said Holgrave, 
pressing her hand. “ Or, if not friends, let us 
part before you entirely hate me. You, who 
love everybody else in the world ! ” 

“ Good-by, then,” said Phoebe frankly. “ I 
do not mean to be angry a great while, and 
should be sorry to have you think so. There 
has Cousin Hepzibah been standing in the 
shadow of the doorway, this quarter of an hour 
past! She thinks I stay too long in the damp 
garden. So, good-night, and good-by ! ” 

On the second morning thereafter, Phoebe 
might have been seen, in her straw bonnet, with 
a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag 
on the other, bidding adieu to Hepzibah and 
Cousin Clifford. She was to take a seat in the 
318 


PHCEBE’S GOOD-BY 


next train of cars, which would transport her to 
within half a dozen miles of her country village. 

The tears were in Phoebe's eyes; a smile, 
dewy with affectionate regret, was glimmering 
around her pleasant mouth. She wondered 
how it came to pass, that her life of a few weeks, 
here in this heavy-hearted old mansion, had 
taken such hold of her, and so melted into her 
associations, as now to seem a more important 
centre-point of remembrance than all which had 
gone before. How had Hepzibah — grim, 
silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cor¬ 
dial sentiment — contrived to win so much 
love ? And Clifford, — in his abortive decay, 
with the mystery of fearful crime upon him, 
and the close prison-atmosphere yet lurking in 
his breath, — how had he transformed himself 
into the simplest child, whom Phoebe felt bound 
to watch over, and be, as it were, the provi¬ 
dence of his unconsidered hours ! Everything, 
at that instant of farewell, stood out prominently 
to her view. Look where she would, lay her 
hand on what she might, the object responded 
to her consciousness, as if a moist human heart 
were in it. 

She peeped from the window into the garden, 
and felt herself more regretful at leaving this 
spot of black earth, vitiated with such an age¬ 
long growth of weeds, than joyful at the idea 
of again scenting her pine forests and fresh 
3*9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two 
wives, and the venerable chicken, and threw 
them some crumbs of bread from the breakfast- 
table. These being hastily gobbled up, the 
chicken spread its wings, and alighted close by 
Phoebe on the window-sill, where it looked 
gravely into her face and vented its emotions in 
a croak. Phoebe bade it be a good old chicken 
during her absence, and promised to bring it a 
little bag of buckwheat. 

cc Ah, Phoebe ! ” remarked Hepzibah, cc you 
do not smile so naturally as when you came to 
us ! Then, the smile chose to shine out; now, 
you choose it should. It is well that you are 
going back, for a little while, into your native 
air. There has been too much weight on your 
spirits. The house is too gloomy and lone¬ 
some ; the shop is full of vexations; and as for 
me, I have no faculty of making things look 
brighter than they are. Dear Clifford has been 
your only comfort! ” 

“ Come hither, Phoebe,” suddenly cried her 
cousin Clifford, who had said very little all the 
morning. “ Close ! —closer ! —and look me 
in the face ! ” 

Phoebe put one of her small hands on each 
elbow of his chair, and leaned her face towards 
him, so that he might peruse it as carefully as 
he would. It is probable that the latent emo¬ 
tions of this parting hour had revived, in some 
320 


PHOEBE’S GOOD-BY 

degree, his bedimmed and enfeebled faculties. 
At any rate, Phoebe soon felt that, if not the 
profound insight of a seer, yet a more than 
feminine delicacy of appreciation, was making 
her heart the subject of its regard. A moment 
before, she had known nothing which she would 
have sought to hide. Now, as if some secret 
were hinted to her own consciousness through 
the medium of another’s perception, she was 
fain to let her eyelids droop beneath Clifford’s 
gaze. A blush, too, — the redder, because she 
strove hard to keep it down, — ascended higher 
and higher, in a tide of fitful progress, until 
even her brow was all suffused with it. 

<c It is enough, Phoebe,” said Clifford, with a 
melancholy smile. “ When I first saw you, you 
were the prettiest little maiden in the world ; 
and now you have deepened into beauty ! Girl¬ 
hood has passed into womanhood; the bud is 
a bloom ! Go, now ! — I feel lonelier than I 

did.” 

Phoebe took leave of the desolate couple, and 
passed through the shop, twinkling her eyelids 
to shake off a dewdrop ; for—considering how 
brief her absence was to be, and therefore the 
folly of being cast down about it—she would 
not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them 
with her handkerchief. On the doorstep, she 
met the little urchin whose marvellous feats of 
gastronomy have been recorded in the earlier 
3 21 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


pages of our narrative. She took from the 
window some specimen or other of natural his¬ 
tory,— her eyes being too dim with moisture 
to inform her accurately whether it was a rab¬ 
bit or a hippopotamus, — put it into the child’s 
hand as a parting gift, and went her way. Old 
Uncle Venner was just coming out of his door, 
with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder ; 
and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not 
to keep company with Phoebe, so far as their 
paths lay together; nor, in spite of his patched 
coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion 
of his tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in 
her heart to outwalk him. 

“We shall miss you, next Sabbath after¬ 
noon,” observed the street philosopher. “ It 
is unaccountable how little while it takes some 
folks to grow just as natural to a man as his 
own breath ; and, begging your pardon, Miss 
Phoebe (though there can be no offence in an 
old man’s saying it), that’s just what you’ve 
grown to me ! My years have been a great 
many, and your life is but just beginning ; and 
yet, you are somehow as familiar to me as if I 
had found you at my mother’s door, and you 
had blossomed, like a running vine, all along 
my pathway since. Come back soon, or I shall 
be gone to my farm ; for I begin to find these 
wood-sawing jobs a little too tough for my 
back-ache.” 


322 


PHCEBE’S GOOD-BY 


“ Very soon, Uncle Venner,” replied Phoebe. 

“ And let it be all the sooner, Phoebe, for the 
sake of those poor souls yonder,” continued 
her companion. “ They can never do without 
you, now, — never, Phoebe, never ! — no more 
than if one of God’s angels had been living 
with them, and making their dismal house plea¬ 
sant and comfortable! Don’t it seem to you 
they’d be in a sad case, if, some pleasant sum¬ 
mer morning like this, the angel should spread 
his wings, and fly to the place he came from ? 
Well, just so they feel, now that you ’re going 
home by the railroad ! They can’t bear it, 
Miss Phoebe; so be sure to come back ! ” 

“ I am no angel. Uncle Venner,” said Phoebe, 
smiling, as she offered him her hand at the 
street corner. “ But, I suppose, people never 
feel so much like angels as when they are doing 
what little good they may. So I shall certainly 
come back! ” 

Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; 
and Phoebe took the wings of the morning, and 
was soon flitting almost as rapidly away as if en¬ 
dowed with the aerial locomotion of the angels 
to whom Uncle Venner had so graciously com¬ 
pared her. 

3 2 3 


XV 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 

S EVERAL days passed over the Seven 
Gables, heavily and drearily enough. In 
fact (not to attribute the whole gloom of 
sky and earth to the one inauspicious circum¬ 
stance of Phoebe’s departure), an easterly storm 
had set in, and indefatigably applied itself to 
the task of making the black roof and walls of 
the old house look more cheerless than ever 
before. Yet was the outside not half so cheer¬ 
less as the interior. Poor Clifford was cut off, 
at once, from all his scanty resources of enjoy¬ 
ment. Phoebe was not there; nor did the sun¬ 
shine fall upon the floor. The garden, with 
its muddy walks, and the chill, dripping foliage 
of its summer-house, was an image to be shud¬ 
dered at. Nothing flourished in the cold, 
moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with the 
brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss 
along the joints of the shingle-roof, and the 
great bunch of weeds, that had lately been suf¬ 
fering from drought, in the angle between the 
two front gables. 


3 2 4 






THE SCOWL AND SMILE 

As for Hepzibah, she seemed not merely 
possessed with the east wind, but to be, in her 
very person, only another phase of this gray 
and sullen spell of weather ; the east wind it¬ 
self, grim and disconsolate, in a rusty black 
silk gown, and with a turban of cloud-wreaths 
on its head. The custom of the shop fell off, 
because a story got abroad that she soured her 
small beer and other damageable commodities, 
by scowling on them. It is, perhaps, true that 
the public had something reasonably to com¬ 
plain of in her deportment; but towards Clif¬ 
ford she was neither ill-tempered nor unkind, 
nor felt less warmth of heart than always, had 
it been possible to make it reach him. The 
inutility of her best efforts, however, palsied the 
poor old gentlewoman. She could do little else 
than sit silently in a corner of the room, when 
the wet pear-tree branches, sweeping across the 
small windows, created a noonday dusk, which 
Hepzibah unconsciously darkened with her 
woebegone aspect. It was no fault of Hepzi- 
bah’s. Everything — even the old chairs and 
tables, that had known what weather was for 
three or four such lifetimes as her own — 
looked as damp and chill as if the present were 
their worst experience. The picture of the Pu¬ 
ritan Colonel shivered on the wall. The house 
itself shivered, from every attic of its seven 
gables down to the great kitchen fireplace, 
3 2 5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


which served all the better as an emblem of the 
mansion’s heart, because, though built for 
warmth, it was now so comfortless and empty. 

Hepzibah attempted to enliven matters by a 
fire in the parlor. But the storm demon kept 
watch above, and, whenever a flame was kin¬ 
dled, drove the smoke back again, choking the 
chimney’s sooty throat with its own breath. 
Nevertheless, during four days of this miserable 
storm, Clifford wrapt himself in an old cloak, 
and occupied his customary chair. On the 
morning of the fifth, when summoned to break¬ 
fast, he responded only by a broken-hearted 
murmur, expressive of a determination not to 
leave his bed. His sister made no attempt to 
change his purpose. In fact, entirely as she 
loved him, Hepzibah could hardly have borne 
any longer the wretched duty — so impractica¬ 
ble by her few and rigid faculties — of seeking 
pastime for a still sensitive, but ruined mind, 
critical and fastidious, without force or volition. 
It was at least something short of positive 
despair, that to-day she might sit shivering 
alone, and not suffer continually a new grief, 
and unreasonable pang of remorse, at every 
fitful sigh of her fellow sufferer. 

But Clifford, it seemed, though he did not 
make his appearance below stairs, had, after all, 
bestirred himself in quest of amusement. In 
the course of the forenoon, Hepzibah heard a 
326 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


note of music, which (there being no other 
tuneful contrivance in the House of the Seven 
Gables) she knew must proceed from Alice 
Pyncheon’s harpsichord. She was aware that 
Clifford, in his youth, had possessed a culti¬ 
vated taste for music, and a considerable degree 
of skill in its practice. It was difficult, how¬ 
ever, to conceive of his retaining an accomplish¬ 
ment to which daily exercise is so essential, in 
the measure indicated by the sweet, airy, and 
delicate, though most melancholy strain, that 
now stole upon her ear. Nor was it less mar¬ 
vellous that the long-silent instrument should 
be capable of so much melody. Hepzibah 
involuntarily thought of the ghostly harmo¬ 
nies, prelusive of death in the family, which 
were attributed to the legendary Alice. But it 
was, perhaps, proof of the agency of other than 
spiritual fingers, that, after a few touches, the 
chords seemed to snap asunder with their own 
vibrations, and the music ceased. 

But a harsher sound succeeded to the mys¬ 
terious notes; nor was the easterly day fated 
to pass without an event sufficient in itself to 
poison, for Hepzibah and Clifford, the balmiest 
air that ever brought the humming-birds along 
with it. The final echoes of Alice Pyncheon’s 
performance (or Clifford’s, if his we must con¬ 
sider it) were driven away by no less vulgar a 
dissonance than the ringing of the shop-bell. 

327 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


A foot was heard scraping itself on the thresh¬ 
old, and thence somewhat ponderously step¬ 
ping on the floor. Hepzibah delayed a moment, 
while muffling herself in a faded shawl, which 
had been her defensive armor in a forty years' 
warfare against the east wind. A characteristic 
sound, however, — neither a cough nor a hem, 
but a kind of rumbling and reverberating spasm 
in somebody's capacious depth of chest, — im¬ 
pelled her to hurry forward, with that aspect 
of fierce faint-heartedness so common to women 
in cases of perilous emergency. Few of her 
sex, on such occasions, have ever looked so 
terrible as our poor scowling Hepzibah. But 
the visitor quietly closed the shop-door behind 
him, stood up his umbrella against the counter, 
and turned a visage of composed benignity, to 
meet the alarm and anger which his appearance 
had excited. 

Hepzibah's presentiment had not deceived 
her. It was no other than Judge Pyncheon, 
who, after in vain trying the front door, had 
now effected his entrance into the shop. 

“ How do you do. Cousin Hepzibah ? — 
and how does this most inclement weather af¬ 
fect our poor Clifford ? " began the Judge ; 
and wonderful it seemed, indeed, that the east¬ 
erly storm was not put to shame, or, at any 
rate, a little mollified, by the genial benevolence 
of his smile. “ I could not rest without calling: 

328 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


to ask, once more, whether I can in any manner 
promote his comfort, or your own.” 

“You can do nothing,” said Hepzibah, con¬ 
trolling her agitation as well as she could. “ I 
devote myself to Clifford. He has every com¬ 
fort which his situation admits of.” 

“ But allow me to suggest, dear cousin,” re¬ 
joined the Judge, “you err, — in all affection 
and kindness, no doubt, and with the very best 
intentions, — but you do err, nevertheless, in 
keeping your brother so secluded. Why insu¬ 
late him thus from all sympathy and kindness ? 
Clifford, alas! has had too much of solitude. 
Now let him try society,— the society, that is 
to say, of kindred and old friends. Let me, 
for instance, but see Clifford, and I will answer 
for the good effect of the interview.” 

“ You cannot see him,” answered Hepzibah. 
“ Clifford has kept his bed since yesterday.” 

“What! How! Is he ill?” exclaimed 
Judge Pyncheon, starting with what seemed to 
be angry alarm ; for the very frown of the old 
Puritan darkened through the room as he 
spoke. “ Nay, then, I must and will see him ! 
What if he should die ? ” 

“ He is in no danger of death,” said Hep¬ 
zibah, — and added, with bitterness that she 
could repress no longer, “ none; unless he 
shall be persecuted to death, now, by the same 
man who long ago attempted it! ” 

3 2 9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

“ Cousin Hepzibah,” said the Judge, with 
an impressive earnestness of manner, which 
grew even to tearful pathos as he proceeded, 
“ is it possible that you do not perceive how 
unjust, how unkind, how unchristian, is this 
constant, this long-continued bitterness against 
me, for a part which I was constrained by duty 
and conscience, by the force of law, and at my 
own peril, to act ? What did I do, in detri¬ 
ment to Clifford, which it was possible to leave 
undone ? How could you, his sister, — if, for 
your never-ending sorrow, as it has been for 
mine, you had known what I did, — have, 
shown greater tenderness ? And do you think, 
cousin, that it has cost me no pang ? — that it 
has left no anguish in my bosom, from that day 
to this, amidst all the prosperity with which 
Heaven has blessed me r — or that I do not 
now rejoice, when it is deemed consistent with the 
dues of public justice and the welfare of society 
that this dear kinsman, this early friend, this 
nature so delicately and beautifully constituted, 
— so unfortunate, let us pronounce him, and 
forbear to say, so guilty, — that our own Clif¬ 
ford, in fine, should be given back to life, and 
its possibilities of enjoyment ? Ah, you little 
know me, Cousin Hepzibah! You little know 
this heart! It now throbs at the thought of 
meeting him ! There lives not the human be¬ 
ing (except yourself, — and you not more than 
330 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


I) who has shed so many tears for Clifford’s 
calamity ! You behold some of them now. 
There is none who would so delight to promote 
his happiness ! Try me, Hepzibah ! — try me, 
cousin ! — try the man whom you have treated 
as your enemy and Clifford’s! — try Jaffrey 
Pyncheon, and you shall find him true, to the 
heart’s core ! ” 

“ In the name of Heaven,” cried Hepzibah, 
provoked only to intenser indignation by this 
outgush of the inestimable tenderness of a stern 
nature, — “ in God’s name, whom you insult, 
and whose power I could almost question, 
since he hears you utter so many false words 
without palsying your tongue, — give over, 
I beseech you, this loathsome pretence of af¬ 
fection for your victim ! You hate him ! Say 
so, like a man ! You cherish, at this moment, 
some black purpose against him in your heart! 
Speak it out, at once ! — or, if you hope so to 
promote it better, hide it till you can triumph 
in its success ! But never speak again of your 
love for my poor brother! I cannot bear it! 
It will drive me beyond a woman’s decency ! 
It will drive me mad ! Forbear ! Not another 
word ! It will make me spurn you ! ” 

For once, Hepzibah’s wrath had given her 
courage. She had spoken. But, after all, was 
this unconquerable distrust of Judge Pyncheon’s 
integrity, and this utter denial, apparently, of his 
33 1 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


claim to stand in the ring of human sympathies, 

— were they founded in any just perception 
of his character, or merely the offspring of a 
woman’s unreasonable prejudice, deduced from 
nothing ? 

The Judge, beyond all question, was a man 
of eminent respectability. The church acknow¬ 
ledged it; the state acknowledged it. It was 
denied by nobody. In all the very extensive 
sphere of those who knew him, whether in his 
public or private capacities, there was not an 
individual — except Hepzibah, and some law¬ 
less mystic, like the daguerreotypist, and, pos¬ 
sibly, a few political opponents — who would 
have dreamed of seriously disputing his claim 
to a high and honorable place in the world’s 
regard. Nor (we must do him the further jus¬ 
tice to say) did Judge Pyncheon himself, prob¬ 
ably, entertain many or very frequent doubts, 
that his enviable reputation accorded with his 
deserts. His conscience, therefore, usually con¬ 
sidered the surest witness to a man’s integrity, 

— his conscience, unless it might be for the 
little space of five minutes in the twenty-four 
hours, or, now and then, some black day in the 
whole year’s circle, — his conscience bore an 
accordant testimony with the world’s laudatory 
voice. And yet, strong as this evidence may 
seem to be, we should hesitate to peril our own 
conscience on the assertion, that the Judge and 

332 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


the consenting world were right, and that poor 
Hepzibah with her solitary prejudice was wrong. 
Hidden from mankind, — forgotten by himself, 
or buried so deeply under a sculptured and 
ornamented pile of ostentatious deeds that his 
daily life could take no note of it, — there may 
have lurked some evil and unsightly thing. 
Nay, we could almost venture to say, further, 
that a daily guilt might have been acted by him, 
continually renewed, and reddening forth afresh, 
like the miraculous blood-stain of a murder, 
without his necessarily and at every moment 
being aware of it. 

Men of strong minds, great force of charac¬ 
ter, and a hard texture of the sensibilities, are 
very capable of falling into mistakes of this 
kind. They are ordinarily men to whom forms 
are of paramount importance. Their field of 
action lies among the external phenomena of 
life. They possess vast ability in grasping, and 
arranging, and appropriating to themselves, the 
big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as gold, landed 
estate, offices of trust and emolument, and 
public honors. With these materials, and with 
deeds of goodly aspect, done in the public eye, 
an individual of this class builds up, as it were, 
a tall and stately edifice, which, in the view of 
other people, and ultimately in his own view, 
is no other than the man’s character, or the 
man himself. Behold, therefore, a palace! Its 
333 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

splendid halls and suites of spacious apartments 
are floored with a mosaic-work of costly mar¬ 
bles ; its windows, the whole height of each 
room, admit the sunshine through the most 
transparent of plate-glass ; its high cornices are 
gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted ; and 
a lofty dome — through which, from the central 
pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with 
no obstructing medium between — surmounts 
the whole. With what fairer and nobler em¬ 
blem could any man desire to shadow forth his 
character ? Ah ! but in some low and obscure 
nook, — some narrow closet on the ground 
floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key 
flung away, — or beneath the marble pavement, 
in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest 
pattern of mosaic-work above, — may lie a 
corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and 
diffusing its death-scent all through the palace ! 
The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for 
it has long been his daily breath ! Neither will 
the visitors, for they smell only the rich odors 
which the master sedulously scatters through 
the palace, and the incense which they bring, 
and delight to burn before him ! Now and 
then, perchance, comes in a seer, before whose 
sadly gifted eye the whole structure melts into 
thin air, leaving only the hidden nook, the 
bolted closet, with the cobwebs festooned over 
its forgotten door, or the deadly hole under the 
334 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


pavement, and the decaying corpse within. 
Here, then, we are to seek the true emblem 
of the man's character, and of the deed that 
gives whatever reality it possesses to his life. 
And, beneath the show of a marble palace, that 
pool of stagnant water, foul with many impuri¬ 
ties, and, perhaps, tinged with blood, — that 
secret abomination, above which, possibly, he 
may say his prayers, without remembering it, 
— is this man's miserable soul ! 

To apply this train of remark somewhat more 
closely to Judge Pyncheon. We might say 
(without in the least imputing crime to a per¬ 
sonage of his eminent respectability) that there 
was enough of splendid rubbish in his life to 
cover up and paralyze a more active and subtile 
conscience than the Judge was ever troubled 
with. The purity of his judicial character, while 
on the bench; the faithfulness of his public ser¬ 
vice in subsequent capacities ; his devotedness 
to his party, and the rigid consistency with 
which he had adhered to its principles, or, at all 
events, kept pace with its organized movements; 
his remarkable zeal as president of a Bible soci¬ 
ety ; his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer of 
a widow's and orphan's fund ; his benefits to 
horticulture, by producing two much esteemed 
varieties of the pear, and to agriculture, through 
the agency of the famous Pyncheon bull; the 
cleanliness of his moral deportment, for a great 
335 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


many years past; the severity with which he had 
frowned upon, and finally cast off, an expensive 
and dissipated son, delaying forgiveness until 
within the final quarter of an hour of the young 
man’s life ; his prayers at morning and eventide, ' 
and graces at meal-time; his efforts in furtherance 
of the temperance cause ; his confining himself, 
since the last attack of the gout, to five diurnal 
glasses of old sherry wine; the snowy whiteness 
of his linen, the polish of his boots, the handsome¬ 
ness of his gold-headed cane, the square and 
roomy fashion of his coat, and the fineness of its 
material, and, in general, the studied propriety of 
his dress and equipment; the scrupulousness 
with which he paid public notice, in the street, by 
a bow, a lifting of the hat, a nod, or a motion of 
the hand, to all and sundry of his acquaintances, 
rich or poor ; the smile of broad benevolence 
wherewith he made it a point to gladden the 
whole world, — what room could possibly be 
found for darker traits in a portrait made up of 
lineaments like these ? This proper face was 
what he beheld in the looking-glass. This ad¬ 
mirably arranged life was what he was conscious 
of in the progress of every day. Then, might 
not he claim to be its result and sum, and say 
to himself and the community, “ Behold Judge 
Pyncheon there ” ? 

And allowing that, many, many years ago, in 
his early and reckless youth, he had committed 
33b 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


some one wrong act, — or that, even now, the 
inevitable force of circumstances should occa¬ 
sionally make him do one questionable deed 
among a thousand praiseworthy, or, at least, 
blameless ones, — would you characterize the 
Judge by that one necessary deed, and that 
half-forgotten act, and let it overshadow the fair 
aspect of a lifetime ? What is there so ponder¬ 
ous in evil, that a thumb’s bigness of it should 
outweigh the mass of things not evil which were 
heaped into the other scale ! This scale and 
balance system is a favorite one with people of 
Judge Pyncheon’s brotherhood. A hard, cold 
man, thus unfortunately situated, seldom or 
never looking inward, and resolutely taking his 
idea of himself from what purports to be his 
image as reflected in the mirror of public opin¬ 
ion, can scarcely arrive at true self-knowledge, 
except through loss of property and reputation. 
Sickness will not always help him do it; not 
always the death hour! 

But our affair now is with Judge Pyncheon 
as he stood confronting the fierce outbreak of 
Hepzibah’s wrath. Without premeditation, to 
her own surprise, and indeed terror, she had 
given vent, for once, to the inveteracy of her 
resentment, cherished against this kinsman for 
thirty years. 

Thus far the Judge’s countenance had ex¬ 
pressed mild forbearance, — grave and almost 
337 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


gentle deprecation of his cousin's unbecoming 
violence, — free and Christian-like forgiveness 
of the wrong inflicted by her words. But when 
those words were irrevocably spoken, his look 
assumed sternness, the sense of power, and im¬ 
mitigable resolve; and this with so natural and 
imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the 
iron man had stood there from the first, and 
the meek man not at all. The effect was as 
when the light, vapory clouds, with their soft 
coloring, suddenly vanish from the stony brow 
of a precipitous mountain, and leave there the 
frown which you at once feel to be eternal. 
Hepzibah almost adopted the insane belief that 
it was her old Puritan ancestor, and not the 
modern Judge, on whom she had just been 
wreaking the bitterness of her heart. Never 
did a man show stronger proof of the lineage 
attributed to him than Judge Pyncheon, at this 
crisis, by his unmistakable resemblance to the 
picture in the inner room. 

“Cousin Hepzibah,” said he very calmly, “it 
is time to have done with this.” 

“With all my heart! ” answered she. “Then, 
why do you persecute us any longer? Leave 
poor Clifford and me in peace. Neither of us 
desires anything better ! ” 

“It is my purpose to see Clifford before I 
leave this house,” continued the Judge. “ Do 
338 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


not act like a madwoman, Hepzibah ! I am his 
only friend, and an all-powerful one. Has it 
never occurred to you, — are you so blind as 
not to have seen, — that, without not merely 
my consent, but my efforts, my representations, 
the exertion of my whole influence, political, 
official, personal, Clifford would never have 
been what you call free ? Did you think his 
release a triumph over me? Not so, my good 
cousin ; not so, by any means ! The furthest 
possible from that! No; but it was the accom¬ 
plishment of a purpose long entertained on my 
part. I set him free ! ” 

“ You ! ” answered Hepzibah. “ I never will 
believe it! He owed his dungeon to you; his 
freedom to God's providence ! ” 

“ I set him free ! ” reaffirmed Judge Pyn- 
cheon, with the calmest composure. “ And I 
came hither now to decide whether he shall 
retain his freedom. It will depend upon him¬ 
self. For this purpose, I must see him." 

“ Never ! — it would drive him mad ! ” ex¬ 
claimed Hepzibah, but with an irresoluteness 
sufficiently perceptible to the keen eye of the 
Judge; for, without the slightest faith in his 
good intentions, she knew not whether there 
was most to dread in yielding or resistance. 
“And why should you wish to see this wretched, 
broken man, who retains hardly a fraction of 
339 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


his intellect, and will hide even that from an 
eye which has no love in it ? ” 

“He shall see love enough in mine, if that be 
all! ” said the Judge, with well-grounded con¬ 
fidence in the benignity of his aspect. “ But, 
Cousin Hepzibah, you confess a great deal, and 
very much to the purpose. Now, listen, and 
I will frankly explain my reasons for insisting 
on this interview. At the death, thirty years 
since, of our uncle Jaffrey, it was found, — I 
know not whether the circumstance ever at¬ 
tracted much of your attention, among the sad¬ 
der interests that clustered round that event, 
— but it was found that his visible estate/of 
every kind, fell far short of any estimate ever 
made of it. He was supposed to be immensely 
rich. Nobody doubted that he stood among 
the weightiest men of his day. It was one of his 
eccentricities, however, — and not altogether a 
folly, neither, — to conceal the amount of his 
property by making distant and foreign invest¬ 
ments, perhaps under other names than his 
own, and by various means, familiar enough to 
capitalists, but unnecessary here to be specified. 
By Uncle Jaffrey’s last will and testament, as 
you are aware, his entire property was be¬ 
queathed to me, with the single exception of a 
life interest to yourself in this old family man¬ 
sion, and the strip of patrimonial estate remain¬ 
ing attached to it.” 


340 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


“ And do you seek to deprive us of that ? ” 
asked Hepzibah, unable to restrain her bitter 
contempt. “ Is this your price for ceasing to 
persecute poor Clifford ? ” 

“ Certainly not, my dear cousin ! ” answered 
the Judge, smiling benevolently. “ On the 
contrary, as you must do me the justice to 
own, I have constantly expressed my readiness 
to double or treble your resources, whenever 
you should make up your mind to accept any 
kindness of that nature at the hands of your 
kinsman. No, no ! But here lies the gist of 
the matter. Of my uncle's unquestionably 
great estate, as I have said, not the half — no, 
not one third, as I am fully convinced — was 
apparent after his death. Now, I have the 
best possible reasons for believing that your 
brother Clifford can give me a clew to the re¬ 
covery of the remainder." 

“ Clifford ! — Clifford know of any hidden 
wealth ? — Clifford have it in his power to 
make you rich ? ” cried the old gentlewoman, 
affected with a sense of something like ridicule 
at the idea. “ Impossible ! You deceive your¬ 
self! It is really a thing to laugh at! ” 

“ It is as certain as that I stand here ! " said 
Judge Pyncheon, striking his gold-headed cane 
on the floor, and at the same time stamping 
his foot, as if to express his conviction the 
more forcibly by the whole emphasis of his 
34i 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


substantial person. “ Clifford told me so 
himself! ” 

“ No, no ! ” exclaimed Hepzibah incredu¬ 
lously. “ You are dreaming, Cousin Jaffrey! ” 
“ I do not belong to the dreaming class of 
men,” said the Judge quietly. “ Some months 
before my uncle’s death, Clifford boasted to me 
of the possession of the secret of incalculable 
wealth. His purpose was to taunt me, and 
excite my curiosity. I know it well. But, from 
a pretty distinct recollection of the particulars 
of our conversation, I am thoroughly convinced 
that there was truth in what he said. Clifford, 
at this moment, if he chooses, — and choose he 
must! — can inform me where to find the 
schedule, the documents, the evidences, in what¬ 
ever shape they exist, of the vast amount of 
Uncle Jaffrey’s missing property. He has the 
secret. His boast was no idle word. It had 
a directness, an emphasis, a particularity, that 
showed a backbone of solid meaning within the 
mystery of his expression.” 

cc But what could have been Clifford’s ob¬ 
ject,” asked Hepzibah, “in concealing it so 
long ? ” 

“It was one of the bad impulses of our fallen 
nature,” replied the Judge, turning up his eyes. 
“ He looked upon me as his enemy. He con¬ 
sidered me as the cause of his overwhelming 
disgrace, his imminent peril of death, his irre- 
342 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


trievable ruin. There was no great probability, 
therefore, of his volunteering information, out 
of his dungeon, that should elevate me still 
higher on the ladder of prosperity. But the 
moment has now come when he must give up 
his secret.” 

“ And what if he should refuse ? ” inquired 
Hepzibah. “ Or, — as I steadfastly believe,— 
what if he has no knowledge of this wealth ? ” 

cc My dear cousin,” said Judge Pyncheon, 
with a quietude which he had the power of 
making more formidable than any violence, 
“ since your brother’s return, I have taken the 
precaution (a highly proper one in the near 
kinsman and natural guardian of an individual 
so situated) to have his deportment and habits 
constantly and carefully overlooked. Your 
neighbors have been eye-witnesses to whatever 
has passed in the garden. The butcher, the 
baker, the fishmonger, some of the customers 
of your shop, and many a prying old woman, 
have told me several of the secrets of your in¬ 
terior. A still larger circle — I myself, among 
the rest — can testify to his extravagances at 
the arched window. Thousands beheld him, a 
week or two ago, on the point of flinging him¬ 
self thence into the street. From all this testi¬ 
mony, I am led to apprehend — reluctantly, 
and with deep grief — that Clifford’s misfor¬ 
tunes have so affected his intellect, never very 
343 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

strong, that he cannot safely remain at large. 
The alternative, you must be aware, — and its 
adoption will depend entirely on the decision 
which I am now about to make, — the alter¬ 
native is his confinement, probably for the 
remainder of his life, in a public asylum for 
persons in his unfortunate state of mind.” 

“ You cannot mean it! ” shrieked Hepzi- 
bah. 

“ Should my cousin Clifford,” continued 
Judge Pyncheon, wholly undisturbed, <c from 
mere malice, and hatred of one whose interests 
ought naturally to be dear to him, — a mode 
of passion that, as often as any other, indicates 
mental disease, — should he refuse me the in¬ 
formation so important to myself, and which he 
assuredly possesses, I shall consider it the one 
needed jot of evidence to satisfy my mind of 
his insanity. And, once sure of the course 
pointed out by conscience, you know me too 
well, Cousin Hepzibah, to entertain a doubt 
that I shall pursue it.” 

“ O Jaffrey, — Cousin Jaffrey ! ” cried Hep¬ 
zibah mournfully, not passionately, “ it is you 
that are diseased in mind, not Clifford ! You 
have forgotten that a woman was your mother ! 
— that you have had sisters, brothers, children 
of your own ! — or that there ever was affection 
between man and man, or pity from one man 
to another, in this miserable world ! Else, how 
344 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 

could you have dreamed of this ? You are not 
young, Cousin Jaffrey ! — no, nor middle-aged, 
— but already an old man ! The hair is white 
upon your head ! How many years have you 
to live ? Are you not rich enough for that 
little time? Shall you be hungry, — shall you 
lack clothes, or a roof to shelter you, — be¬ 
tween this point and the grave? No! but, 
with the half of what you now possess, you 
could revel in costly food and wines, and build 
a house twice as splendid as you now inhabit, 
and make a far greater show to the world, — 
and yet leave riches to your only son, to make 
him bless the hour of your death ! Then, why 
should you do this cruel, cruel thing ? — so 
mad a thing, that I know not whether to call it 
wicked! Alas, Cousin Jaffrey, this hard and 
grasping spirit has run in our blood these two 
hundred years. You are but doing over again, 
in another shape, what your ancestor before you 
did, and sending down to your posterity the 
curse inherited from him ! ” 

“ Talk sense, Hepzibah, for Heaven’s sake! ” 
exclaimed the Judge, with the impatience natu¬ 
ral to a reasonable man, on hearing anything 
so utterly absurd as the above, in a discussion 
about matters of business. “ I have told you 
my determination. I am not apt to change. 
Clifford must give up his secret, or take the 
consequences. And let him decide quickly; 

345 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

for I have several affairs to attend to this morn¬ 
ing, and an important dinner engagement with 
some political friends.” 

“ Clifford has no secret! ” answered Hepzi- 
bah. “ And God will not let you do the thing 
you meditate ! ” 

“We shall see,” said the unmoved Judge. 

“ Meanwhile, choose whether you will sum¬ 
mon Clifford, and allow this business to be 
amicably settled by an interview between two 
kinsmen, or drive me to harsher measures, 
which I should be most happy to feel myself 
justified in avoiding. The responsibility is 
altogether on your part.” 

“ You are stronger than I,” said Hepzibah, 
after a brief consideration ; “ and you have no 
pity in your strength ! Clifford is not now in¬ 
sane ; but the interview which you insist upon 
may go far to make him so. Nevertheless, 
knowing you as I do, I believe it to be my - 
best course to allow you to judge for yourself 
as to the improbability of his possessing any 
valuable secret. 1 will call Clifford. Be mer¬ 
ciful in your dealings with him ! — be far more 
merciful than your heart bids you be ! — for 
God is looking at you, Jaffrey Pyncheon ! ” 

The Judge followed his cousin from the shop, 
where the foregoing conversation had passed, 
into the parlor, and flung himself heavily into 
the great ancestral chair. Many a former Pyn- 
346 


THE SCOWL AND SMILE 


cheon had found repose in its capacious arms: 
rosy children, after their sports; young men, 
dreamy with love; grown men, weary with 
cares; old men, burdened with winters,— they 
had mused, and slumbered, and departed to 
a yet profounder sleep. It had been a long 
tradition, though a doubtful one, that this 
was the very chair, seated in which the earliest 
of the Judge’s New England forefathers — he 
whose picture still hung upon the wall — had 
given a dead man’s silent and stern reception 
to the throng of distinguished guests. From 
that hour of evil omen until the present, it may 
be, — though we know not the secret of his 
heart, — but it may be that no wearier and 
sadder man had ever sunk into the chair than 
this same Judge Pyncheon, whom we have 
just beheld so immitigably hard and resolute. 
Surely, it must have been at no slight cost that 
he had thus fortified his soul with iron. Such 
calmness is a mightier effort than the violence 
of weaker men. And there was yet a heavy 
task for him to do. Was it a little matter,— 
a trifle to be prepared for in a single moment, 
and to be rested from in another moment,— 
that he must now, after thirty years, encounter 
a kinsman risen from a living tomb, and wrench 
a secret from him, or else consign him to a liv¬ 
ing tomb again ? 

“ Did you speak?” asked Hepzibah, look- 
347 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ing in from the threshold of the parlor; for 
she imagined that the Judge had uttered some 
sound which she was anxious to interpret as a 
relenting impulse. “ I thought you called me 
back.” 

“ No, no! ” gruffly answered Judge Pyn- 
cheon with a harsh frown, while his brow 
grew almost a black purple, in the shadow of 
the room. “ Why should I call you back ? 
Time flies ! Bid Clifford come to me ! ” 

The Judge had taken his watch from his 
vest pocket and now held it in his hand, mea¬ 
suring the interval which was to ensue before 
the appearance of Clifford. 

348 


XVI 


Clifford’s chamber 

N EVER had the old house appeared so 
dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she 
departed on that wretched errand. 
There was a strange aspect in it. As she 
trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened 
one crazy door after another, and ascended the 
creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and fear¬ 
fully around. It would have been no mar¬ 
vel, to her excited mind, if, behind or beside 
her, there had been the rustle of dead people’s 
garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the 
landing-place above. Her nerves were set all 
ajar by the scene of passion and terror through 
which she had just struggled. Her colloquy 
with Judge Pyncheon, who so perfectly repre¬ 
sented the person and attributes of the founder 
of the family, had called back the dreary past. 
It weighed upon her heart. Whatever she 
had heard, from legendary aunts and grand¬ 
mothers, concerning the good or evil fortunes 
of the Pyncheons, — stories which had here¬ 
tofore been kept warm in her remembrance 
by the chimney-corner glow that was associ- 
349 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ated with them, — now recurred to her, som¬ 
bre, ghastly, cold, like most passages of family 
history, when brooded over in melancholy 
mood. The whole seemed little else but a 
series of calamity, reproducing itself in succes¬ 
sive generations, with one general hue, and 
varying in little, save the outline. But Hep- 
zibah now felt as if the Judge, and Clifford, 
and herself, — they three together, — were on 
the point of adding another incident to the 
annals of the house, with a bolder relief of 
wrong and sorrow, which would cause it to 
stand out from all the rest. Thus it is that 
the grief of the passing moment takes upon 
itself an individuality, and a character of cli¬ 
max, which it is destined to lose after a while, 
and to fade into the dark gray tissue common 
to the grave or glad events of many years ago. 
It is but for a moment, comparatively, that 
anything looks strange or startling, — a truth 
that has the bitter and the sweet in it. 

But Hepzibah could not rid herself of the 
sense of something unprecedented at that in¬ 
stant passing and soon to be accomplished. 
Her nerves were in a shake. Instinctively she 
paused before the arched window, and looked 
out upon the street, in order to seize its per¬ 
manent objects with her mental grasp, and 
thus to steady herself from the reel and vibra¬ 
tion which affected her more immediate sphere. 

350 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 

It brought her up, as we may say, with a kind 
of shock, when she beheld everything under 
the same appearance as the day before, and 
numberless preceding days, except for the dif¬ 
ference between sunshine and sullen storm. 
Her eyes travelled along the street, from door¬ 
step to doorstep, noting the wet sidewalks, with 
here and there a puddle in hollows that had 
been imperceptible until filled with water. She 
screwed her dim optics to their acutest point, 
in the hope of making out, with greater dis¬ 
tinctness, a certain window, where she half 
saw, half guessed, that a tailor’s seamstress was 
sitting at her work. Hepzibah flung herself 
upon that unknown woman’s companionship, 
even thus far off. Then she was attracted by 
a chaise rapidly passing, and watched its moist 
and glistening top, and its splashing wheels, 
until it had turned the corner, and refused to 
carry any further her idly trifling, because ap¬ 
palled and overburdened, mind. When the 
vehicle had disappeared, she allowed herself 
still another loitering moment; for the patched 
figure of good Uncle Venner was now visible, 
coming slowly from the head of the street 
downward, with a rheumatic limp, because the 
east wind had got into his joints. Hepzibah 
wished that he would pass yet more slowly, 
and befriend her shivering solitude a little 
longer. Anything that would take her out of 
35i 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

the grievous present, and interpose human 
beings betwixt herself and what was nearest to 
her, — whatever would defer for an instant 
the inevitable errand on which she was bound, 
— all such impediments were welcome. Next 
to the lightest heart, the heaviest is apt to be 
most playful. 

Hepzibah had little hardihood for her own 
proper pain, and far less for what she must in¬ 
flict on Clifford. Of so slight a nature, and so 
shattered by his previous calamities, it could not 
well be short of utter ruin to bring him face 
to face with the hard, relentless man who had 
been his evil destiny through life. Even had 
there been no bitter recollections, nor any hos¬ 
tile interest now at stake between them, the 
mere natural repugnance of the more sensitive 
system to the massive, weighty, and unimpres- 
sible one, must, in itself, have been disastrous 
to the former. It would be like flinging a por¬ 
celain vase, with already a crack in it, against a 
granite column. Never before had Hepzibah 
so adequately estimated the powerful character 
of her cousin Jaffrey, — powerful by intellect, 
energy of will, the long habit of acting among 
men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous 
pursuit of selfish ends through evil means. It 
did but increase the difficulty that Judge Pyn- 
cheon was under a delusion as to the secret 
which he supposed Clifford to possess. Men 
352 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 


of his strength of purpose and customary saga¬ 
city, if they chance to adopt a mistaken opinion 
in practical matters, so wedge it and fasten it 
among things known to be true, that to wrench 
it out of their minds is hardly less difficult than 
pulling up an oak. Thus, as the Judge re¬ 
quired an impossibility of Clifford, the latter, 
as he could not perform it, must needs perish. 
For what, in the grasp of a man like this, was 
to become of Clifford's soft poetic nature, that 
never should have had a task more stubborn 
than to set a life of beautiful enjoyment to the 
flow and rhythm of musical cadences ! Indeed, 
what had become of it already ? Broken ! 
Blighted ! All but annihilated ! Soon to be 
wholly so ! 

For a moment, the thought crossed Hep- 
zibah’s mind, whether Clifford might not really 
have such knowledge of their deceased uncle's 
vanished estate as the Judge imputed to him. 
She remembered some vague intimations, on her 
brother's part, which — if the supposition were 
not essentially preposterous — might have been 
so interpreted. There had been schemes of 
travel and residence abroad, day-dreams of bril¬ 
liant life at home, and splendid castles in the 
air, which it would have required boundless 
wealth to build and realize. Had this wealth 
been in her power, how gladly would Hepzi- 
bah have bestowed it all upon her iron-hearted 
353 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

kinsman, to buy for Clifford the freedom and 
seclusion of the desolate old house ! But she 
believed that her brother’s schemes were as 
destitute of actual substance and purpose as a 
child’s pictures of its future life, while sitting in 
a little chair by its mother’s knee. Clifford 
had none but shadowy gold at his command; 
and it was not the stuff to satisfy Judge Pyn- 
cheon! 

Was there no help in their extremity ? It 
seemed strange that there should be none, with 
a city round about her. It would be so easy 
to throw up the window, and send forth a 
shriek, at the strange agony of which everybody 
would come hastening to the rescue, well un¬ 
derstanding it to be the cry of a human soul, 
at some dreadful crisis ! But how wild, how 
almost laughable, the fatality, — and yet how 
continually it comes to pass, thought Hepzi- 
bah, in this dull delirium of a world, — that 
whosoever, and with however kindly a purpose, 
should come to help, they would be sure to 
help the strongest side! Might and wrong 
combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed 
with irresistible attraction. There would be 
Judge Pyncheon, — a person eminent in the 
public view, of high station and great wealth, a 
philanthropist, a member of Congress and of 
the church, and intimately associated with what¬ 
ever else bestows good name, — so imposing, 
354 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 


in these advantageous lights, that Hepzibah 
herself could hardly help shrinking from her 
own conclusions as to his hollow integrity. The 
Judge, on one side ! And who, on the other ? 
The guilty Clifford ! Once a byword ! Now, 
an indistinctly remembered ignominy ! 

Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that 
the Judge would draw all human aid to his own 
behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act 
for herself, that the least word of counsel would 
have swayed her to any mode of action. Little 
Phoebe Pyncheon would at once have lighted 
up the whole scene, if not by any available sug¬ 
gestion, yet simply by the warm vivacity of her 
character. The idea of the artist occurred to 
Hepzibah. Young and unknown, mere va¬ 
grant adventurer as he was, she had been con¬ 
scious of a force in Holgrave which might well 
adapt him to be the champion of a crisis. With 
this thought in her mind, she unbolted a door, 
cobwebbed and long disused, but which had 
served as a former medium of communication 
between her own part of the house and the 
gable where the wandering daguerreotypist had 
now established his temporary home. He was 
not there. A book, face downward, on the 
table, a roll of manuscript, a half-written sheet, 
a newspaper, some tools of his present occupa¬ 
tion, and several rejected daguerreotypes, con¬ 
veyed an impression as if he were close at hand. 

355 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


But, at this period of the day, as Hepzibah 
might have anticipated, the artist was at his 
public rooms. With an impulse of idle curi¬ 
osity, that flickered among her heavy thoughts, 
she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and 
beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate 
stared her in the face. She turned back from 
her fruitless quest, with a heart-sinking sense of 
disappointment. In all her years of seclusion, 
she had never felt, as now, what it was to be 
alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a 
desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to 
those who dwelt around, or passed beside it; 
so that any mode of misfortune, miserable acci¬ 
dent, or crime might happen in it without the 
possibility of aid. In her grief and wounded 
pride, Hepzibah had spent her life in divest¬ 
ing herself of friends ; she had wilfully cast off 
the support which God has ordained his crea¬ 
tures to need from one another; and it was 
now her punishment, that Clifford and herself 
would fall the easier victims to their kindred 
enemy. 

Returning to the arched window, she lifted 
her eyes, — scowling, poor, dim-sighted Hep¬ 
zibah, in the face of Heaven! — and strove 
hard to send up a prayer through the dense 
gray pavement of clouds. Those mists had 
gathered, as if to symbolize a great, brooding 
mass of human trouble, doubt, confusion, and 
35b 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 

chill indifference, between earth and the better 
regions. Her faith was too weak ; the prayer 
too heavy to be thus uplifted. It fell back, a 
lump of lead, upon her heart. It smote her 
with the wretched conviction that Providence 
intermeddled not in these petty wrongs of one 
individual to his fellow, nor had any balm for 
these little agonies of a solitary soul; but shed 
its justice, and its mercy, in a broad, sunlike 
sweep, over half the universe at once. Its vast¬ 
ness made it nothing. But Hepzibah did not 
see that, just as there comes a warm sunbeam 
into every cottage window, so comes a love- 
beam of God’s care and pity for every separate 
need. 

At last, finding no other pretext for deferring 
the torture that she was to inflict on Clifford, 
— her reluctance to which was the true cause of 
her loitering at the window, her search for the 
artist, and even her abortive prayer, — dreading, 
also, to hear the stern voice of Judge Pyncheon 
from below stairs, chiding her delay,— she crept 
slowly, a pale, grief-stricken figure, a dismal 
shape of woman, with almost torpid limbs, 
slowly to her brother’s door, and knocked! 

There was no reply ! 

And how should there have been ? Her 
hand, tremulous with the shrinking purpose 
which directed it, had smitten so feebly against 
the door that the sound could hardly have gone 
357 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


inward. She knocked again. Still no response! 
Nor was it to be wondered at. She had struck 
with the entire force of her heart’s vibration, 
communicating, by some subtile magnetism, her 
own terror to the summons. Clifford would 
turn his face to the pillow, and cover his head 
beneath the bedclothes, like a startled child at 
midnight. She knocked a third time, three 
regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, 
and with meaning in them; for, modulate it 
with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot 
help playing some tune of what we feel upon 
the senseless wood. 

Clifford returned no answer. 

M Clifford ! dear brother ! ” said Hepzibah. 
“ Shall I come in ? ” 

A silence. 

Two or three times, and more, Hepzibah 
repeated his name, without result; till, thinking 
her brother’s sleep unwontedly profound, she 
undid the door, and entering, found the cham¬ 
ber vacant. How could he have come forth, 
and when, without her knowledge ? Was it pos¬ 
sible that, in spite of the stormy day, and worn 
out with the irksomeness within doors, he had 
betaken himself to his customary haunt in the 
garden, and was now shivering under the cheer¬ 
less shelter of the summer-house ? She hastily 
threw up a window, thrust forth her turbaned 
head and the half of her gaunt figure, and 
358 


CLIFFORD'S CHAMBER 

searched the whole garden through, as com¬ 
pletely as her dim vision would allow. She 
could see the interior of the summer-house, and 
its circular seat, kept moist by the droppings 
of the roof. It had no occupant. Clifford was 
not thereabouts ; unless, indeed, he had crept 
for concealment (as, for a moment, Hepzibah 
fancied might be the case) into a great, wet 
mass of tangled and broad-leaved shadow, 
where the squash-vines were clambering tu¬ 
multuously upon an old wooden framework, set 
casually aslant against the fence. This could 
not be, however; he was not there ; for, while 
Hepzibah was looking, a strange grimalkin stole 
forth from the very spot, and picked his way 
across the garden. Twice he paused to snuff 
the air, and then anew directed his course to¬ 
wards the parlor window. Whether it was only 
on account of the stealthy, prying manner com¬ 
mon to the race, or that this cat seemed to have 
more than ordinary mischief in his thoughts, 
the old gentlewoman, in spite of her much per¬ 
plexity, felt an impulse to drive the animal 
away, and accordingly flung down a window 
stick. The cat stared up at her, like a detected 
thief or murderer, and, the next instant, took 
to flight. No other living creature was visible 
in the garden. Chanticleer and his family had 
either not left their roost, disheartened by the 
interminable rain, or had done the next wisest 
359 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


thing, by seasonably returning to it. Hepzibah 
closed the window. 

But where was Clifford ? Could it be that, 
aware of the presence of his Evil Destiny, he 
had crept silently down the staircase, while the 
Judge and Hepzibah stood talking in the shop, 
and had softly undone the fastenings of the 
outer door, and made his escape into the street ? 
With that thought, she seemed to behold his 
gray, wrinkled, yet childlike aspect, in the old- 
fashioned garments which he wore about the 
house; a figure such as one sometimes ima¬ 
gines himself to be, with the world’s eye upon 
him, in a troubled dream. This figure of her 
wretched brother would go wandering through 
the city, attracting all eyes, and everybody’s 
wonder and repugnance, like a ghost, the more 
to be shuddered at because visible at noontide. 
To incur the ridicule of the younger crowd, 
that knew him not, — the harsher scorn and 
indignation of a few old men, who might recall 
his once familiar features ! To be the sport of 
boys, who, when old enough to run about the 
streets, have no more reverence for what is 
beautiful and holy, nor pity for what is sad,— 
no more sense of sacred misery, sanctifying the 
human shape in which it embodies itself, — than 
if Satan were the father of them all ! Goaded 
by their taunts, their loud, shrill cries, and cruel 
laughter, — insulted by the filth of the public 
360 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 


ways, which they would fling upon him,— or, as 
it might well be, distracted by the mere strange¬ 
ness of his situation, though nobody should 
afflict him with so much as a thoughtless word, 
— what wonder if Clifford were to break into 
some wild extravagance which was certain to be 
interpreted as lunacy? Thus Judge Pyncheon’s 
fiendish scheme would be ready accomplished 
to his hands! 

Then Hepzibah reflected that the town was 
almost completely water-girdled. The wharves 
stretched out towards the centre of the harbor, 
and, in this inclement weather, were deserted by 
the ordinary throng of merchants, laborers, and 
seafaring men; each wharf a solitude, with the 
vessels moored stem and stern, along its misty 
length. Should her brother's aimless footsteps 
stray thitherward, and he but bend, one mo¬ 
ment, over the deep, black tide, would he not 
bethink himself that here was the sure refuge 
within his reach, and that, with a single step, or 
the slightest overbalance of his body, he might 
be forever beyond his kinsman’s gripe ? Oh, 
the temptation ! To make of his ponderous 
sorrow a security ! To sink, with its leaden 
weight upon him, and never rise again ! 

The horror of this last conception was too 
much for Hepzibah. Even Jaffrey Pyncheon 
must help her now ! She hastened down the 
staircase, shrieking as she went. 

361 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Clifford is gone! ” she cried. “ I cannot 
find my brother! Help, Jaffrey Pyncheon! 
Some harm will happen to him ! ” 

She threw open the parlor door. But, what 
with the shade of branches across the windows, 
and the smoke-blackened ceiling, and the dark 
oak-panelling of the walls, there was hardly so 
much daylight in the room that Hepzibah’s 
imperfect sight could accurately distinguish the 
Judge’s figure. She was certain, however, that 
she saw him sitting in the ancestral armchair, 
near the centre of the floor, with his face some¬ 
what averted, and looking towards a window. 
So firm and quiet is the nervous system of such 
men as Judge Pyncheon, that he had perhaps 
stirred not more than once since her departure, 
but, in the hard composure of his temperament, 
retained the position into which accident had 
thrown him. 

“ I tell you, Jaffrey,” cried Hepzibah impa¬ 
tiently, as she turned from the parlor door to 
search other rooms, “ my brother is not in his 
chamber ! You must help me seek him ! ” 

But Judge Pyncheon was not the man to let 
himself be startled from an easy-chair with 
haste ill-befitting either the dignity of his char¬ 
acter or his broad personal basis, by the alarm 
of an hysteric woman. Yet, considering his 
own interest in the matter, he might have be¬ 
stirred himself with a little more alacrity. 

362 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 


“ Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon ? ” 
screamed Hepzibah, as she again approached 
the parlor door, after an ineffectual search else¬ 
where. “ Clifford is gone! ” 

At this instant, on the threshold of the par¬ 
lor, emerging from within, appeared Clifford 
himself! His face was preternaturally pale; 
so deadly white, indeed, that, through all the 
glimmering indistinctness of the passageway, 
Hepzibah could discern his features, as if a 
light fell on them alone. Their vivid and wild 
expression seemed likewise sufficient to illumi¬ 
nate them ; it was an expression of scorn and 
mockery, coinciding with the emotions indi¬ 
cated by his gesture. As Clifford stood on the 
threshold, partly turning back, he pointed his 
finger within the parlor, and shook it slowly 
as though he would have summoned, not Hep¬ 
zibah alone, but the whole world, to gaze at 
some object inconceivably ridiculous. This 
action, so ill-timed and extravagant, — accom¬ 
panied, too, with a look that showed more like 
joy than any other kind of excitement, — com¬ 
pelled Hepzibah to dread that her stern kins¬ 
man's ominous visit had driven her poor 
brother to absolute insanity. Nor could she 
otherwise account for the Judge's quiescent 
mood than by supposing him craftily on the 
watch, while Clifford developed these symptoms 
of a distracted mind. 

363 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Be quiet, Clifford ! ” whispered his sister, 
raising her hand to impress caution. “ Oh, for 
Heaven's sake, be quiet! ” 

“ Let him be quiet! What can he do bet¬ 
ter ? ” answered Clifford, with a still wilder ges¬ 
ture, pointing into the room whch he had just 
quitted. “ As for us, Hepzibah, we can dance 
now ! — we can sing, laugh, play, do what we 
will! The weight is gone, Hepzibah ! it is 
gone off this weary old world, and we may be 
as light-hearted as little Phoebe herself! ” 

And, in accordance with his words, he began 
to laugh, still pointing his finger at the object, 
invisible to Hepzibah, within the parlor. She 
was seized with a sudden intuition of some hor¬ 
rible thing. She thrust herself past Clifford, 
and disappeared into the room ; but almost 
immediately returned, with a cry choking in 
her throat. Gazing at her brother with an af¬ 
frighted glance of inquiry, she beheld him all 
in a tremor and a quake, from head to foot, 
while, amid these commoted elements of pas¬ 
sion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth. 

“ My God! what is to become of us ? ” 
gasped Hepzibah. 

“ Come ! ” said Clifford in a tone of brief 
decision, most unlike what was usual with him. 
“We stay here too long! Let us leave the 
old house to our cousin Jaffrey! He will take 
good care of it! ” 


3 6 4 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 

Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on 
a cloak, — a garment of long ago, — in which 
he had constantly muffled himself during these 
days of easterly storm. He beckoned with his 
hand, and intimated, so far as she could com¬ 
prehend him, his purpose that they should go 
together from the house. There are chaotic, 
blind, or drunken moments, in the lives of 
persons who lack real force of character,— 
moments of test, in which courage would most 
assert itself, — but where these individuals, if 
left to themselves, stagger aimlessly along, or 
follow implicitly whatever guidance may befall 
them, even if it be a child’s. No matter how 
preposterous or insane, a purpose is a Godsend 
to them. Hepzibah had reached this point. 
Unaccustomed to action or responsibility, — 
full of horror at what she had seen, and afraid 
to inquire, or almost to imagine, how it had 
come to pass, — affrighted at the fatality which 
seemed to pursue her brother, — stupefied by 
the dim, thick, stifling atmosphere of dread 
which filled the house as with a death-smell, 
and obliterated all definiteness of thought, — 
she yielded without a question, and on the in¬ 
stant, to the will which Clifford expressed. For 
herself, she was like a person in a dream, when 
the will always sleeps. Clifford, ordinarily so 
destitute of this faculty, had found it in the 
tension of the crisis. 

365 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ Why do you delay so ? ” cried he sharply. 
“ Put on your cloak and hood, or whatever it 
pleases you to wear! No matter what; you 
cannot look beautiful nor brilliant, my poor 
Hepzibah ! Take your purse, with money in 
it, and come along! ” 

Hepzibah obeyed these instructions, as if no¬ 
thing else were to be done or thought of. She 
began to wonder, it is true, why she did not 
wake up, and at what still more intolerable 
pitch of dizzy trouble her spirit would struggle 
out of the maze, and make her conscious that 
nothing of all this had actually happened. Of 
course it was not real; no such black, easterly 
day as this had yet begun to be ; Judge Pyn- 
cheon had not talked with her ; Clifford had 
not laughed, pointed, beckoned her away with 
him; but she had merely been afflicted — as 
lonely sleepers often are — with a great deal of 
unreasonable misery, in a morning dream ! 

“ Now— now — I shall certainly awake ! ” 
thought Hepzibah, as she went to and fro, mak¬ 
ing her little preparations. “ I can bear it no 
longer ! I must wake up now ! ” 

But it came not, that awakening moment! 
It came not, even when, just before they left 
the house, Clifford stole to the parlor door, and 
made a parting obeisance to the sole occupant 
of the room. 

“ What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts 
366 


CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER 


now! ” whispered he to Hepzibah. “ Just 
when he fancied he had me completely under 
his thumb ! Come, come ; make haste ! or he 
will start up, like Giant Despair in pursuit of 
Christian and Hopeful, and catch us yet! ” 

As they passed into the street, Clifford di¬ 
rected Hepzibah’s attention to something on 
one of the posts of the front door. It was 
merely the initials of his own name, which, with 
somewhat of his characteristic grace about the 
forms of the letters, he had cut there when a 
boy. The brother and sister departed, and left 
Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his 
forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lump¬ 
ish that we can liken him to nothing better than 
a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the 
midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse 
on the breast of the tormented one, to be got¬ 
ten rid of as it might! 

3 6 7 


XVII 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 

S UMMER as it was,the east wind set poor 
Hepzibah’s few remaining teeth chatter¬ 
ing in her head, as she and Clifford faced 
it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and to¬ 
wards the centre of the town. Not merely was 
it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought 
to her frame (although her feet and hands, 
especially, had never seemed so death-a-cold 
as now), but there was a moral sensation, min¬ 
gling itself with the physical chill, and causing 
her to shake more in spirit than in body. The 
world’s broad, bleak atmosphere was all so com¬ 
fortless ! Such, indeed, is the impression which 
it makes on every new adventurer, even if he 
plunge into it while the warmest tide of life is 
bubbling through his veins. What, then, must 
it have been to Hepzibah and Clifford, — so 
time-stricken as they were, yet so like children 
in their inexperience, — as they left the door¬ 
step, and passed from beneath the wide shelter 
of the Pyncheon Elm ! They were wandering 
all abroad, on precisely such a pilgrimage as a 
368 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


child often meditates, to the world's end, with 
perhaps a sixpence and a biscuit in his pocket. 
In Hepzibah’s mind, there was the wretched 
consciousness of being adrift. She had lost the 
faculty of self-guidance; but, in view of the 
difficulties around her, felt it hardly worth an 
effort to regain it, and was, moreover, incapa¬ 
ble of making one. 

As they proceeded on their strange expedi¬ 
tion, she now and then cast a look sidelong at 
Clifford, and could not but observe that he was 
possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. 
It was this, indeed, that gave him the control 
which he had at once, and so irresistibly, estab¬ 
lished over his movements. It not a little re¬ 
sembled the exhilaration of wine. Or, it might 
more fancifully be compared to a joyous piece 
of music, played with wild vivacity, but upon 
a disordered instrument. As the cracked jar¬ 
ring note might always be heard, and as it jarred 
loudest amidst the loftiest exultation of the mel¬ 
ody, so was there a continual quake through 
Clifford, causing him most to quiver while he 
wore a triumphant smile, and seemed almost 
under a necessity to skip in his gait. 

They met few people abroad, even on passing 
from the retired neighborhood of the House of 
the Seven Gables into what was ordinarily the 
more thronged and busier portion of the town. 
Glistening sidewalks, with little pools of rain, 
3 6 9 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

here and there, along their unequal surface; 
umbrellas displayed ostentatiously in the shop- 
windows, as if the life of trade had concentrated 
itself in that one article; wet leaves of the 
horse-chestnut or elm trees, torn off untimely 
by the blast and scattered along the public way ; 
an unsightly accumulation of mud in the mid¬ 
dle of the street, which perversely grew the 
more unclean for its long and laborious wash¬ 
ing, — these were the more definable points of 
a very sombre picture. In the way of move¬ 
ment and human life, there was the hasty rat¬ 
tle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a 
waterproof cap over his head and shoulders; 
the forlorn figure of an old man, who seemed 
to have crept out of some subterranean sewer, 
and was stooping along the kennel, and poking 
the wet rubbish with a stick, in quest of rusty 
nails; a merchant or two, at the door of the 
post-office, together with an editor and a mis¬ 
cellaneous politician, awaiting a dilatory mail ; 
a few visages of retired sea-captains at the win¬ 
dow of an insurance office, looking out vacantly 
at the vacant street, blaspheming at the weather, 
and fretting at the dearth as well of public news 
as local gossip. What a treasure-trove to these 
venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed 
the secret which Hepzibah and Clifford were 
carrying along with them ! But their two fig¬ 
ures attracted hardly so much notice as that of 
370 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


a young girl, who passed at the same instant, 
and happened to raise her skirt a trifle too high 
above her ankles. Had it been a sunny and 
cheerful day, they could hardly have gone 
through the streets without making themselves 
obnoxious to remark. Now, probably, they 
were felt to be in keeping with the dismal and 
bitter weather, and therefore did not stand out 
in strong relief, as if the sun were shining on 
them, but melted into the gray gloom and were 
forgotten as soon as gone. 

Poor Hepzibah! Could she have understood 
this fact, it would have brought her some little 
comfort; for,to all her other troubles, — strange 
to say! — there was added the womanish and 
old-maiden-like misery arising from a sense of 
unseemliness in her attire. Thus, she was fain 
to shrink deeper into herself, as it were, as if in 
the hope of making people suppose that here 
was only a cloak and hood, threadbare and 
woefully faded, taking an airing in the midst of 
the storm, without any wearer! 

As they went on, the feeling of indistinctness 
and unreality kept dimly hovering round about 
her, and so diffusing itself into her system that 
one of her hands was hardly palpable to the 
touch of the other. Any certainty would have 
been preferable to this. She whispered to her¬ 
self, again and again, “ Am I awake ? — Am I 
awake ? ” and sometimes exposed her face to 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the chill spatter of the wind, for the sake of its 
rude assurance that she was. Whether it was 
Clifford's purpose, or only chance, had led them 
thither, they now found themselves passing be¬ 
neath the arched entrance of a large structure 
of gray stone. Within, there was a spacious 
breadth, and an airy height from floor to roof, 
now partially filled with smoke and steam, 
which eddied voluminously upward and formed 
a mimic cloud-region over their heads. A train 
of cars was just ready for a start; the locomo¬ 
tive was fretting and fuming, like a steed impa¬ 
tient for a headlong rush ; and the bell rang out 
its hasty peal, so well expressing the brief sum¬ 
mons which life vouchsafes to us in its hurried 
career. Without question or delay, — with the 
irresistible decision, if not rather to be called 
recklessness, which had so strangely taken pos¬ 
session of him, and through him of Hepzibah, 
— Clifford impelled her towards the cars, and 
assisted her to enter. The signal was given; 
the engine puffed forth its short, quick breaths; 
the train began its movement; and, along with 
a hundred other passengers, these two unwonted 
travellers sped onward like the wind. 

At last, therefore, and after so long estrange¬ 
ment from everything that the world acted or 
enjoyed, they had been drawn into the great 
current of human life, and were swept away 
with it, as by the suction of fate itself. 

372 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


Still haunted with the idea that not one of 
the past incidents, inclusive of Judge Pyn- 
cheon’s visit, could be real, the recluse of the 
Seven Gables murmured in her brother’s ear,— 
“ Clifford ! Clifford ! Is not this a dream ? ” 
“ A dream, Hepzibah ! ” repeated he, almost 
laughing in her face. “ On the contrary, I have 
never been awake before! ” 

Meanwhile, looking from the window, they 
could see the world racing past them. At one 
moment, they were rattling through a solitude; 
the next, a village had grown up around them; 
a few breaths more, and it had vanished, as if 
swallowed by an earthquake. The spires of 
meeting-houses seemed set adrift from their 
foundations ; the broad-based hills glided away. 
Everything was unfixed from its age-long rest, 
and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction 
opposite to their own. 

Within the car there was the usual interior 
life of the railroad, offering little to the obser¬ 
vation of other passengers, but full of novelty 
for this pair of strangely enfranchised prisoners. 
It was novelty enough, indeed, that there were 
fifty human beings in close relation with them, 
under one long and narrow roof, and drawn 
onward by the same mighty influence that had 
taken their two selves into its grasp. It seemed 
marvellous how all these people could remain 
so quietly in their seats, while so much noisy 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

strength was at work in their behalf. Some, 
with tickets in their hats (long travellers these, 
before whom lay a hundred miles of railroad), 
had plunged into the English scenery and ad¬ 
ventures of pamphlet novels, and were keeping 
company with dukes and earls. Others, whose 
briefer span forbade their devoting themselves 
to studies so abstruse, beguiled the little tedium 
of the way with penny-papers. A party of 
girls, and one young man, on opposite sides 
of the car, found huge amusement in a game of 
ball. They tossed it to and fro, with peals 
of laughter that might be measured by mile- 
lengths ; for, faster than the nimble ball could 
fly, the merry players fled unconsciously along, 
leaving the trail of their mirth afar behind, and 
ending their game under another sky than had 
witnessed its commencement. Boys, with ap¬ 
ples, cakes, candy, and rolls of variously tinc¬ 
tured lozenges, — merchandise that reminded 
Hepzibah of her deserted shop, — appeared at 
each momentary stopping-place, doing up their 
business in a hurry, or breaking it short off, 
lest the market should ravish them away with 
it. New people continually entered. Old ac¬ 
quaintances— for such they soon grew to be, 
in this rapid current of affairs — continually 
departed. Here and there, amid the rumble 
and the tumult, sat one asleep. Sleep ; sport; 
business ; graver or lighter study ; and the corn- 
374 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


mon and inevitable movement onward ! It was 
life itself! 

Clifford's naturally poignant sympathies were 
all aroused. He caught the color of what was 
passing about him, and threw it back more 
vividly than he received it, but mixed, neverthe¬ 
less, with a lurid and portentous hue. Hepzi- 
bah, on the other hand, felt herself more apart 
from human kind than even in the seclusion 
which she had just quitted. 

“You are not happy, Hepzibah ! ” said Clif¬ 
ford apart, in a tone of reproach. “You are 
thinking of that dismal old house, and of Cou¬ 
sin JafFrey,” — here came the quake through 
him, — “ and of Cousin JafFrey sitting there, all 
by himself! Take my advice, — follow my ex¬ 
ample,— and let such things slip aside. Here 
we are, in the world, Hepzibah ! — in the midst 
of life ! — in the throng of our fellow beings ! 
Let you and I be happy ! As happy as that 
youth and those pretty girls, at their game of 
ball! ” 

“ Happy ! ” thought Hepzibah, bitterly con¬ 
scious, at the word, of her dull and heavy heart, 
with the frozen pain in it, — “ happy ! He is 
mad already; and, if I could once feel myself 
broad awake, I should go mad too ! ” 

If a fixed idea be madness, she was perhaps 
not remote from it. Fast and far as they had 
rattled and clattered along the iron track, they 
375 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


might just as well, as regarded Hepzibah’s 
mental images, have been passing up and down 
Pyncheon Street. With miles and miles of 
varied scenery between, there was no scene for 
her save the seven old gable peaks, with their 
moss, and the tuft of weeds in one of the angles, 
and the shop-window, and a customer shaking 
the door, and compelling the little bell to jingle 
fiercely, but without disturbing Judge Pyn¬ 
cheon ! This one old house was everywhere ! It 
transported its great, lumbering bulk with more 
than railroad speed, and set itself phlegmatically 
down on whatever spot she glanced at. The 
quality of Hepzibah’s mind was too unmalle- 
able to take new impressions so readily as Clif¬ 
ford’s. He had a winged nature; she was 
rather of the vegetable kind, and could hardly 
be kept long alive, if drawn up by the roots. 
Thus it happened that the relation heretofore 
existing between her brother and herself was 
changed. At home, she was his guardian; 
here, Clifford had become hers, and seemed to 
comprehend whatever belonged to their new 
position with a singular rapidity of intelligence. 
He had been startled into manhood and intel¬ 
lectual vigor; or, at least, into a condition that 
resembled them, though it might be both dis¬ 
eased and transitory. 

The conductor now applied for their tickets; 
and Clifford, who had made himself the purse- 
376 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 

bearer, put a banknote into his hand, as he had 
observed others do. 

“ For the lady and yourself? ” asked the 
conductor. “ And how far ? ” 

<c As far as that will carry us,” said Clifford. 
“ It is no great matter. We are riding for 
pleasure merely ! ” 

“ You choose a strange day for it, sir ! ” re¬ 
marked a gimlet-eyed old gentleman on the 
other side of the car, looking at Clifford and 
his companion, as if curious to make them out. 
“ The best chance of pleasure, in an easterly 
rain, I take it, is in a man’s own house, with a 
nice little fire in the chimney.” 

“ I cannot precisely agree with you,” said 
Clifford, courteously bowing to the old gentle¬ 
man, and at once taking up the clew of conver¬ 
sation which the latter had proffered. “ It had 
just occurred to me, on the contrary, that this 
admirable invention of the railroad — with the 
vast and inevitable improvements to be looked 
for, both as to speed and convenience — is des¬ 
tined to do away with those stale ideas of home 
and fireside, and substitute something better.” 

“ In the name of common-sense,” asked the 
old gentleman rather testily, “ what can be bet¬ 
ter for a man than his own parlor and chimney- 
corner ? ” 

“ These things have not the merit which 
many good people attribute to them,” replied 
377 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

Clifford. “ They may be said, in few and 
pithy words, to have ill served a poor purpose. 
My impression is, that our wonderfully in¬ 
creased and still increasing facilities of loco¬ 
motion are destined to bring us around again 
to the nomadic state. You are aware, my dear 
sir, — you must have observed it in your own 
experience, — that all human progress is in a 
circle ; or, to use a more accurate and beautiful 
figure, in an ascending spiral curve. While we 
fancy ourselves going straight forward, and at¬ 
taining, at every step, an entirely new position 
of affairs, we do actually return to something 
long ago tried and abandoned, but which we 
now find etherealized, refined, and perfected to 
its ideal. The past is but a coarse and sen¬ 
sual prophecy of the present and the future. 
To apply this truth to the topic now under dis¬ 
cussion. In the early epochs of our race, men 
dwelt in temporary huts, of bowers of branches, 
as easily constructed as a bird’s-nest, and which 
they built, — if it should be called building, 
when such sweet homes of a summer solstice 
rather grew than were made with hands, — 
which Nature, we will say, assisted them to 
rear where fruit abounded, where fish and game 
were plentiful, or, most especially, where the 
sense of beauty was to be gratified by a lovelier 
shade than elsewhere, and a more exquisite ar¬ 
rangement of lake, wood, and hill. This life 
378 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


possessed a charm which, ever since man quit¬ 
ted it, has vanished from existence. And it 
typified something better than itself. It had 
its drawbacks ; such as hunger and thirst, in¬ 
clement weather, hot sunshine, and weary and 
foot-blistering marches over barren and ugly 
tracts, that lay between the sites desirable for 
their fertility and beauty. But in our ascending 
spiral, we escape all this. These railroads — 
could but the whistle be made musical, and the 
rumble and the jar got rid of—are positively the 
greatest blessing that the ages have wrought out 
for us. They give us wings; they annihilate 
the toil and dust of pilgrimage ; they spiritual¬ 
ize travel! Transition being so facile, what can 
be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot ? 
Why, therefore, should he build a more cum¬ 
brous habitation than can readily be carried off 
with him ? Why should he make himself a 
prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old 
worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily 
dwell, in one sense, nowhere, — in a better 
sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer 
him a home?” 

Clifford’s countenance glowed, as he di¬ 
vulged this theory; a youthful character shone 
out from within, converting the wrinkles and 
pallid duskiness of age into an almost transpar¬ 
ent mask. The merry girls let their ball drop 
upon the floor, and gazed at him. They said 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


to themselves, perhaps, that, before his hair was 
gray and the crow’s-feet tracked his temples, 
this now decaying man must have stamped the 
impress of his features on many a woman’s 
heart. But, alas ! no woman’s eye had seen 
his face while it was beautiful. 

“ I should scarcely call it an improved state 
of things,” observed Clifford’s new acquaint¬ 
ance, <c to live everywhere and nowhere ! ” 

“ Would you not ? ” exclaimed Clifford, with 
singular energy. “ It is as clear to me as sun¬ 
shine, — were there any in the sky, — that the 
greatest possible stumbling-blocks in the path 
of human happiness and improvement are these 
heaps of bricks and stones, consolidated with 
mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with 
spike-nails, which men painfully contrive for 
their own torment, and call them house and 
home ! The soul needs air ; a wide sweep and 
frequent change of it. Morbid influences, in a 
thousand-fold variety, gather about hearths, and 
pollute the life of households. There is no 
such unwholesome atmosphere as that of an old 
home, rendered poisonous by one’s defunct 
forefathers and relatives. I speak of what I 
know. There is a certain house within my 
familiar recollection, — one of those peaked- 
gable (there are seven of them), projecting- 
storied edifices, such as you occasionally see in 
our older towns, — a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry- 
380 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 

rotted, damp-rotted, dingy, dark, and misera¬ 
ble old dungeon, with an arched window over 
the porch, and a little shop-door on one side, 
and a great, melancholy elm before it! Now, 
sir, whenever my thoughts recur to this seven- 
gabled mansion (the fact is so very curious that 
I must needs mention it), immediately I have 
a vision or image of an elderly man, of remark¬ 
ably stern countenance, sitting in an oaken 
elbow-chair, dead, stone dead, with an ugly flow 
of blood upon his shirt-bosom ! Dead, but 
with open eyes ! He taints the whole house, 
as I remember it. I could never flourish there, 
nor be happy, nor do nor enjoy what God 
meant me to do and enjoy ! ” 

H is face darkened, and seemed to contract, 
and shrivel itself up, and wither into age. 

“ Never, sir ! ” he repeated. “ I could never 
draw cheerful breath there! ” 

“ I should think not,” said the old gentle¬ 
man, eyeing Clifford earnestly, and rather ap¬ 
prehensively. u I should conceive not, sir, 
with that notion in your head ! ” 

“ Surely not,” continued Clifford ; “ and it 
were a relief to me if that house could be torn 
down, or burnt up, and so the earth be rid of 
it, and grass be sown abundantly over its foun¬ 
dation. Not that I should ever visit its site 
again ! for, sir, the farther I get away from it, 
the more does the joy, the lightsome freshness, 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


the heart-leap, the intellectual dance, the youth, 
in short, — yes, my youth, my youth ! — the 
more does it come back to me. No longer ago 
than this morning, I was old. I remember 
looking in the glass, and wondering at my own 
gray hair, and the wrinkles, many and deep, 
right across my brow, and the furrows down 
my cheeks, and the prodigious trampling of 
crow's-feet about my temples ! It was too 
soon ! I could not bear it! Age had no right 
to come ! I had not lived ! But now do I look 
old ? If so, my aspect belies me strangely; 
for — a great weight being off my mind — I 
feel in the very heyday of my youth, with the 
world and my best days before me ! " 

“ I trust you may find it so," said the old 
gentleman, who seemed rather embarrassed, and 
desirous of avoiding the observation which Clif¬ 
ford’s wild talk drew on them both. “ You 
have my best wishes for it." 

“ For Heaven’s sake, dear Clifford, be quiet!" 
whispered his sister. “ They think you mad.” 

“ Be quiet yourself, Hepzibah ! ’’ returned her 
brother. “No matter what they think ! I am 
not mad. For the first time in thirty years 
my thoughts gush up and find words ready for 
them. I must talk, and I will! ’’ 

He turned again towards the old gentleman, 
and renewed the conversation. 

“ Yes, my dear sir," said he, “ it is my firm 
382 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


belief and hope that these terms of roof and 
hearthstone, which have so long been held to 
embody something sacred, are soon to pass out 
of men’s daily use, and be forgotten. Just im¬ 
agine, for a moment, how much of human evil 
will crumble away, with this one change ! What 
we call real estate — the solid ground to build 
a house on — is the broad foundation on which 
nearly all the guilt of this world rests. A man 
will commit almost any wrong, — he will heap 
up an immense pile of wickedness, as hard as 
granite, and which will weigh as heavily upon 
his soul, to eternal ages, — only to build a great, 
gloomy, dark-chambered mansion, for himself 
to die in, and for his posterity to be miserable 
in. He lays his own dead corpse beneath the 
underpinning, as one may say, and hangs his 
frowning picture on the wall, and, after thus 
converting himself into an evil destiny, expects 
his remotest great-grandchildren to be happy 
there ! I do not speak wildly. I have just 
such a house in my mind’s eye ! ” 

“ Then, sir,” said the old gentleman, getting 
anxious to drop the subject, “ you are not to 
blame for leaving it.” 

“ Within the lifetime of the child already 
born,” Clifford went on, <c all this will be done 
away. The world is growing too ethereal and 
spiritual to bear these enormities a great while 
longer. To me, — though, for a considerable 
3 8 3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


period of time, I have lived chiefly in retire¬ 
ment, and know less of such things than most 
men, — even to me, the harbingers of a better 
era are unmistakable. Mesmerism, now! Will 
that effect nothing, think you, towards purging 
away the grossness out of human life ? ” 

“ All a humbug ! ” growled the old gentle¬ 
man. 

“ These rapping spirits, that little Phoebe told 
us of, the other day,” said Clifford, — “what 
are these but the messengers of the spiritual 
world, knocking at the door of substance ? 
And it shall be flung wide open ! ” 

“ A humbug, again ! ” cried the old gentle¬ 
man, growing more and more testy at these 
glimpses of Clifford’s metaphysics. “ I should 
like to rap with a good stick on the empty pates 
of the dolts who circulate such nonsense ! ” 

“ Then there is electricity, — the demon, 
the angel, the mighty physical power, the all- 
pervading intelligence ! ” exclaimed Clifford. 
“Is that a humbug, too ? Is it a fact — or 
have I dreamt it — that, by means of electricity, 
the world of matter has become a great nerve, 
vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless 
point of time ? Rather, the round globe is a 
vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence ! 
Or, shall we say, it is itself a thought, nothing 
but thought, and no longer the substance which 
we deemed it! ” 


384 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


cc If you mean the telegraph/’ said the old 
gentleman, glancing his eye toward its wire, 
alongside the rail-track, “ it is an excellent 
thing, — that is, of course, if the speculators 
in cotton and politics don’t get possession of 
it. A great thing, indeed, sir, particularly as 
regards the detection of bank-robbers and 
murderers.” 

“ I don’t quite like it, in that point of view,” 
replied Clifford. “ A bank-robber, and what 
you call a murderer, likewise, has his rights, 
which men of enlightened humanity and con¬ 
science should regard in so much the more lib¬ 
eral spirit, because the bulk of society is prone 
to controvert their existence. An almost spir¬ 
itual medium, like the electric telegraph, should 
be consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and holy 
missions. Lovers, day by day, — hour by hour, 
if so often moved to do it, — might send their 
heart-throbs from Maine to Florida, with some 
such words as these, c I love you forever ! ’ — 
£ My heart runs over with love ! ’ — c I love 
you more than I can ! ’ and, again, at the next 
message, c I have lived an hour longer, and love 
you twice as much! ’ Or, when a good man 
has departed, his distant friend should be con¬ 
scious of an electric thrill, as from the world of 
happy spirits, telling him, c Your dear friend is 
in bliss ! ’ Or, to an absent husband, should 
tidings thus, c An immortal being, of 
3$5 


come 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


whom you are the father, has this moment come 
from God!’ and immediately its little voice 
would seem to have reached so far, and to be 
echoing in his heart. But for these poor rogues, 
the bank-robbers, — who, after all, are about as 
honest as nine people in ten, except that they 
disregard certain formalities, and prefer to trans¬ 
act business at midnight rather than 'Change- 
hours,— and for these murderers, as you phrase 
it, who are often excusable in the motives of 
their deed, and deserve to be ranked among 
public benefactors, if we consider only its re¬ 
sult, — for unfortunate individuals like these, 
I really cannot applaud the enlistment of an 
immaterial and miraculous power in the uni¬ 
versal world-hunt at their heels ! ” 

“ You can’t, hey ? ” cried the old gentleman, 
with a hard look. 

“Positively, no!” answered Clifford. “It 
puts them too miserably at disadvantage. For 
example, sir, in a dark, low, cross-beamed, pan¬ 
elled room of an old house, let us suppose a 
dead man, sitting in an armchair, with a blood¬ 
stain on his shirt-bosom, — and let us add to 
our hypothesis another man, issuing from the 
house, which he feels to be over-filled with the 
dead man’s presence, — and let us lastly ima¬ 
gine him fleeing, Heaven knows whither, at the 
speed of a hurricane, by railroad ! Now, sir, if 
the fugitive alight in some distant town, and find 
386 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


all the people babbling about that self-same 
dead man, whom he has fled so far to avoid the 
sight and thought of, will you not allow that 
his natural rights have been infringed ? He has 
been deprived of his city of refuge, and, in my 
humble opinion, has suffered infinite wrong! ” 
“ You are a strange man, sir ! ” said the old 
gentleman, bringing his gimlet-eye to a point 
on Clifford, as if determined to bore right into 
him. “ I can’t see through you ! ” 

“No, I ’ll be bound you can’t! ” cried Clif¬ 
ford, laughing. “ And yet, my dear sir, I am as 
transparent as the water of Maule’s well! But 
come, Hepzibah! We have flown far enough 
for once. Let us alight, as the birds do, and 
perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult 
whither we shall fly next! ” 

Just then, as it happened, the train reached 
a solitary way-station. Taking advantage of 
the brief pause, Clifford left the car, and drew 
Hepzibah along with him. A moment after¬ 
wards, the train — with all the life of its inte¬ 
rior, amid which Clifford had made himself so 
conspicuous an object — was gliding away in 
the distance, and rapidly lessening to a point 
which, in another moment, vanished. The 
world had fled away from these two wanderers. 
They gazed drearily about them. At a little 
distance stood a wooden church, black with age, 
and in a dismal state of ruin and decay, with 
387 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

broken windows, a great rift through the main 
body of the edifice, and a rafter dangling from 
the top of the square tower. Farther off was a 
farmhouse, in the old style, as venerably black 
as the church, with a roof sloping downward 
from the three-story peak, to within a man’s 
height of the ground. It seemed uninhabited. 
There were the relics of a woodpile, indeed, 
near the door, but with grass sprouting up 
among the chips and scattered logs. The small 
raindrops came down aslant; the wind was 
not turbulent, but sullen, and full of chilly 
moisture. 

Clifford shivered from head to foot. The 
wild effervescence of his mood — which had so 
readily supplied thoughts, fantasies, and a 
strange aptitude of words, and impelled him to 
talk from the mere necessity of giving vent to 
this bubbling-up gush of ideas — had entirely 
subsided. A powerful excitement had given 
him energy and vivacity. Its operation over, 
he forthwith began to sink. 

“ You must take the lead now, Hepzibah !” 
murmured he, with a torpid and reluctant utter¬ 
ance. “ Do with me as you will ! ” 

She knelt down upon the platform where 
they were standing and lifted her clasped hands 
to the sky. The dull, gray weight of clouds 
made it invisible ; but it was no hour for dis¬ 
belief, — no juncture this to question that there 
388 


THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS 


was a sky above, and an Almighty Father look¬ 
ing from it! 

“ O God ! ” — ejaculated poor, gaunt Hepzi- 
bah, — then paused a moment, to consider what 
her prayer should be, — “O God, — our Fa¬ 
ther, — are we not thy children ? Have mercy 
on us ! ” 

3 8 9 


XVIII 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

J UDGE PYNCHEON, while his two 
relatives have fled away with such ill-con¬ 
sidered haste, still sits in the old parlor, 
keeping house, as the familiar phrase is, in the 
absence of its ordinary occupants. To him, and 
to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, 
does our story now betake itself, like an owl, 
bewildered in the daylight, and hastening back 
to his hollow tree. 

The Judge has not shifted his position for a 
long while now. He has not stirred hand or 
foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as a hair’s- 
breadth from their fixed gaze towards the cor¬ 
ner of the room, since the footsteps of Hepzi- 
bah and Clifford creaked along the passage, and 
the outer door was closed cautiously behind 
their exit. He holds his watch in his left hand, 
but clutched in such a manner that you can¬ 
not see the dial-plate. How profound a fit of 
meditation ! Or, supposing him asleep, how 
infantile a quietude of conscience, and what 
wholesome order in the gastric region, are be¬ 
tokened by slumber so entirely undisturbed 
390 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dream- 
talk, trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, 
or any slightest irregularity of breath ! You 
must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself 
whether he breathes at all. It is quite inaudible. 
You hear the ticking of his watch ; his breath 
you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber, 
doubtless ! And yet, the Judge cannot be 
asleep. His eyes are open ! A veteran poli¬ 
tician, such as he, would never fall asleep with 
wide-open eyes, lest some enemy or mischief- 
maker, taking him thus at unawares, should 
peep through these windows into his conscious¬ 
ness, and make strange discoveries among the 
reminiscences, projects, hopes, apprehensions, 
weaknesses, and strong points, which he has 
heretofore shared with nobody. A cautious man 
is proverbially said to sleep with one eye open. 
That may be wisdom. But not with both ; for 
this were heedlessness ! No, no ! Judge Pyn- 
cheon cannot be asleep. 

It is odd, however, that a gentleman so bur¬ 
dened with engagements, — and noted, too, for 
punctuality, — should linger thus in an old 
lonely mansion, which he has never seemed very 
fond of visiting. The oaken chair, to be sure, 
may tempt him with its roominess. It is, in¬ 
deed, a spacious, and, allowing for the rude age 
that fashioned it, a moderately easy seat, with 
capacity enough, at all events, and offering no 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

restraint to the Judge’s breadth of beam. A 
bigger man might find ample accommodation 
in it. His ancestor, now pictured upon the 
wall, with all his English beef about him, used 
hardly to present a front extending from elbow 
to elbow of this chair, or a base that would 
cover its whole cushion. But there are better 
chairs than this, — mahogany, black walnut, 
rosewood, spring-seated and damask-cushioned, 
with varied slopes, and innumerable artifices to 
make them easy, and obviate the irksomeness of 
too tame an ease, — a score of such might be at 
Judge Pyncheon’s service. Yes ! in a score of 
drawing-rooms he would be more than welcome. 
Mamma would advance to meet him, with out¬ 
stretched hand ; the virgin daughter, elderly as 
he has now got to be, — an old widower, as he 
smilingly describes himself, — would shake up 
the cushion for the Judge, and do her pretty 
utmost to make him comfortable. For the 
Judge is a prosperous man. He cherishes his 
schemes, moreover, like other people, and rea¬ 
sonably brighter than most others ; or did so, 
at least, as he lay abed this morning, in an agree¬ 
able half-drowse, planning the business of the 
day, and speculating on the probabilities of the 
next fifteen years. With his firm health, and 
the little inroad that age has made upon him, 
fifteen years or twenty — yes, or perhaps five- 
and-twenty ! — are no more than he may fairly 
392 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


call his own. Five-and-twenty years for the 
enjoyment of his real estate in town and coun¬ 
try, his railroad, bank, and insurance shares, 
his United States stock, — his wealth, in short, 
however invested, now in possession, or soon 
to be acquired ; together with the public honors 
that have fallen upon him, and the weightier 
ones that are yet to fall! It is good ! It is 
excellent! It is enough ! 

Still lingering in the old chair ! If the Judge 
has a little time to throw away, why does not 
he visit the insurance office, as is his frequent 
custom, and sit awhile in one of their leathern- 
cushioned armchairs, listening to the gossip of 
the day, and dropping some deeply designed 
chance-word, which will be certain to become 
the gossip of to-morrow ! And have not the 
bank directors a meeting at which it was the 
Judge’s purpose to be present, and his office to 
preside? Indeed they have; and the hour is 
noted on a card, which is, or ought to be, in 
Judge Pyncheon’s right vest pocket. Let him 
go thither, and loll at ease upon his money¬ 
bags ! He has lounged long enough in the old 
chair ! 

This was to have been such a busy day ! In 
the first place, the interview with Clifford. 
Half an hour, by the Judge’s reckoning, was to 
suffice for that; it would probably be less, but 
— taking into consideration that Hepzibah was 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


first to be dealt with, and that these women are 
apt to make many words where a few would do 
much better — it might be safest to allow half 
an hour. Half an hour? Why, Judge, it is 
already two hours, by your own undeviatingly 
accurate chronometer ! Glance your eye down 
at it and see ! Ah ! he will not give himself 
the trouble either to bend his head, or elevate 
his hand, so as to bring the faithful time-keeper 
within his range of vision ! Time, all at once, 
appears to have become a matter of no moment 
with the Judge ! 

And has he forgotten all the other items of 
his memoranda ? Clifford’s affair arranged, he 
was to meet a State Street broker, who has un¬ 
dertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the 
best of paper, for a few loose thousands which 
the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested. 
The wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his 
railroad trip in vain. Half an hour later, in 
the street next to this, there was to be an auc¬ 
tion of real estate, including a portion of the 
old Pyncheon property, originally belonging to 
Maule’s garden ground. It has been alienated 
from the Pyncheons these fourscore years ; but 
the Judge had kept it in his eye, and had set his 
heart on reannexing it to the small demesne 
still left around the Seven Gables ; and now, 
during this odd fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer 
must have fallen, and transferred our ancient 
394 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


patrimony to some alien possessor ! Possibly, 
indeed, the sale may have been postponed till 
fairer weather. If so, will the Judge make it 
convenient to be present, and favor the auction¬ 
eer with his bid, on the proximate occasion ? 

The next affair was to buy a horse for his 
own driving. The one heretofore his favorite 
stumbled, this very morning, on the road to 
town, and must be at once discarded. Judge 
Pyncheon’s neck is too precious to be risked 
on such a contingency as a stumbling steed. 
Should all the above business be seasonably 
got through with, he might attend the meeting 
of a charitable society ; the very name of which, 
however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, 
is quite forgotten ; so that this engagement may 
pass unfulfilled, and no great harm done. And 
if he have time, amid the press of more urgent 
matters, he must take measures for the renewal 
of Mrs. Pyncheon’s tombstone, which, the sex¬ 
ton tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and 
is cracked quite in twain. She was a praise¬ 
worthy woman enough, thinks the Judge, in 
spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she 
was so oozy with, and her foolish behavior 
about the coffee; and as she took her depar¬ 
ture so seasonably, he will not grudge the sec¬ 
ond tombstone. It is better, at least, than if 
she had never needed any ! The next item on 
his list was to give orders for some fruit-trees, 
395 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

of a rare variety, to be deliverable at his coun¬ 
try-seat in the ensuing autumn. Yes, buy 
them, by all means; and may the peaches be 
luscious in your mouth, Judge Pyncheon ! 
After this comes something more important. 
A committee of his political party has besought 
him for a hundred or two of dollars, in addition 
to his previous disbursements, towards carrying 
on the fall campaign. The Judge is a patriot; 
the fate of the country is staked on the Novem¬ 
ber election ; and besides, as will be shadowed 
forth in another paragraph, he has no trifling 
stake of his own in the same great game. He 
will do what the committee asks ; nay, he will 
be liberal beyond their expectations ; they shall 
have a check for five hundred dollars, and more 
anon, if it be needed. What next ? A decayed 
widow, whose husband was Judge Pyncheon’s 
early friend, has laid her case of destitution be¬ 
fore him, in a very moving letter. She and her 
fair daughter have scarcely bread to eat. He 
partly intends to call on her to-day, — perhaps 
so — perhaps not, — accordingly as he may 
happen to have leisure, and a small banknote. 

Another business, which, however, he puts 
no great weight on (it is well, you know, to be 
heedful, but not over-anxious, as respects one’s 
personal health), — another business, then, was 
to consult his family physician. About what, 
for Heaven’s sake ? Why, it is rather difficult 
39b 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


to describe the symptoms. A mere dimness 
of sight and dizziness of brain, was it ? — or 
a disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurgling, 
or bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the 
anatomists say ? — or was it a pretty severe 
throbbing and kicking of the heart, rather 
creditable to him than otherwise, as showing 
that the organ had not been left out of the 
Judge’s physical contrivance ? No matter what 
it was. The doctor probably would smile at 
the statement of such trifles to his professional 
ear ; the Judge would smile in his turn ; and 
meeting one another’s eyes, they would enjoy a 
hearty laugh together! But a fig for medical 
advice ! The Judge will never need it. 

Pray, pray, Judge Pyncheon, look at your 
watch, now ! What — not a glance ! It is 
within ten minutes of the dinner hour! It 
surely cannot have slipped your memory that 
the dinner of to-day is to be the most impor¬ 
tant, in its consequences, of all the dinners you 
ever ate. Yes, precisely the most important; 
although, in the course of your somewhat emi¬ 
nent career, you have been placed high towards 
the head of the table, at splendid banquets, and 
have poured out your festive eloquence to ears 
yet echoing with Webster’s mighty organ-tones. 
No public dinner this, however. It is merely 
a gathering of some dozen or so of friends from 
several districts of the State ; men of distin- 
397 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


guished character and influence, assembling, al¬ 
most casually, at the house of a common friend, 
likewise distinguished, who will make them 
welcome to a little better than his ordinary fare. 
Nothing in the way of French cookery, but an 
excellent dinner, nevertheless. Real turtle, we 
understand, and salmon, tautog, canvas-backs, 
pig, English mutton, good roast beef, or dain¬ 
ties of that serious kind, fit for substantial 
country gentlemen, as these honorable persons 
mostly are. The delicacies of the season, in 
short, and flavored by a brand of old Madeira 
which has been the pride of many seasons. It 
is the Juno brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, 
and full of gentle might; a bottled-up happi¬ 
ness, put by for use ; a golden liquid, worth 
more than liquid gold ; so rare and admirable, 
that veteran wine-bibbers count it among their 
epochs to have tasted it! It drives away the 
heart-ache, and substitutes no head-ache! Could 
the Judge but quaff a glass, it might enable him 
to shake off the unaccountable lethargy which 
(for the ten intervening minutes, and five to 
boot, are already past) has made him such a 
laggard at this momentous dinner. It would 
all but revive a dead man ! Would you like 
to sip it now, Judge Pyncheon ? 

Alas, this dinner ! Have you really forgot¬ 
ten its true object? Then let us whisper it, 
that you may start at once out of the oaken 
398 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

chair, which really seems to be enchanted, like 
the one in Comus, or that in which Moll 
Pitcher imprisoned your own grandfather. But 
ambition is a talisman more powerful than witch¬ 
craft. Start up, then, and, hurrying through 
the streets, burst in upon the company, that 
they may begin before the fish is spoiled! 
They wait for you; and it is little for your 
interest that they should wait. These gentle¬ 
men — need you be told it ? — have assembled, 
not without purpose, from every quarter of the 
State. They are practised politicians, every 
man of them, and skilled to adjust those pre¬ 
liminary measures which steal from the people, 
without its knowledge, the power of choosing 
its own rulers. The popular voice, at the next 
gubernatorial election, though loud as thunder, 
will be really but an echo of what these gentle¬ 
men shall speak, under their breath, at your 
friend’s festive board. They meet to decide 
upon their candidate. This little knot of sub¬ 
tle schemers will control the convention, and, 
through it, dictate to the party. And what 
worthier candidate, — more wise and learned, 
more noted for philanthropic liberality, truer to 
safe principles, tried oftener by public trusts, 
more spotless in private character, with a larger 
stake in the common welfare, and deeper 
grounded, by hereditary descent, in the faith 
and practice of the Puritans, — what man can 
399 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


be presented for the suffrage of the people, so 
eminently combining all these claims to the 
chief rulership as Judge Pyncheon here before 
us ? 

Make haste, then ! Do your part! The 
meed for which you have toiled, and fought, 
and climbed, and crept, is ready for your grasp ! 
Be present at this dinner! — drink a glass or 
two of that noble wine ! — make your pledges 
in as low a whisper as you will ! — and you rise 
up from table virtually governor of the glorious 
old State ! Governor Pyncheon of Massachu¬ 
setts ! 

And is there no potent and exhilarating cor¬ 
dial in a certainty like this? It has been the 
grand purpose of half your lifetime to obtain 
it. Now, when there needs little more than 
to signify your acceptance, why do you sit 
so lumpishly in your great-great-grandfather's 
oaken chair, as if preferring it to the guberna¬ 
torial one? We have all heard of King Log; 
but, in these jostling times, one of that royal 
kindred will hardly win the race for an elective 
chiet magistracy. 

Well! it is absolutely too late for dinner! 
Turtle, salmon, tautog, woodcock, boiled tur¬ 
key, South-Down mutton, pig, roast beef, have 
vanished, or exist only in fragments, with luke¬ 
warm potatoes, and gravies crusted over with 
cold fat. The Judge, had he done nothing else, 
400 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

would have achieved wonders with his knife 
and fork. It was he, you know, of whom it 
used to be said, in reference to his ogre-like 
appetite, that his Creator made him a great 
animal, but that the dinner hour made him a 
great beast. Persons of his large sensual en¬ 
dowments must claim indulgence, at their feed¬ 
ing-time. But, for once, the Judge is entirely 
too late for dinner! Too late, we fear, even 
to join the party at their wine! The guests 
are warm and merry; they have given up the 
Judge; and, concluding that the Free-Soilers 
have him, they will fix upon another candidate. 
Were our friend now to stalk in among them, 
with that wide-open stare, at once wild and 
stolid, his ungenial presence would be apt to 
change their cheer. Neither would it be seemly 
in Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous in 
his attire, to show himself at a dinner-table 
with that crimson stain upon his shirt-bosom. 
By the bye, how came it there? It is an ugly 
sight, at any rate; and the wisest way for the 
Judge is to button his coat closely over his 
breast, and, taking his horse and chaise from 
the livery stable, to make all speed to his own 
house. There, after a glass of brandy and 
water, and a mutton-chop, a beefsteak, a broiled 
fowl, or some such hasty little dinner and sup¬ 
per all in one, he had better spend the even¬ 
ing by the fireside. He must toast his slippers 
401 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


a long while, in order to get rid of the chilli¬ 
ness which the air of this vile old house has 
sent curdling through his veins. 

Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up ! You 
have lost a day. But to-morrow will be here 
anon. Will you rise, betimes, and make the 
most of it? To-morrow! To-morrow! To¬ 
morrow! We, that are alive, may rise betimes 
to-morrow. As for him that has died to-day, 
his morrow will be the resurrection morn. 

Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward 
out of the corners of the room. The shadows 
of the tall furniture grow deeper, and at first 
become more definite; then, spreading wider, 
they lose their distinctness of outline in the 
dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were, that 
creeps slowly over the various objects, and the 
one human figure sitting in the midst of them. 
The gloom has not entered from without; it 
has brooded here all day, and now, taking its 
own inevitable time, will possess itself of every¬ 
thing. The Judge’s face, indeed, rigid and 
singularly white, refuses to melt into this uni¬ 
versal solvent. Fainter and fainter grows the 
light. It is as if another double-handful of 
darkness had been scattered through the air. 
Now it is no longer gray, but sable. There is 
still a faint appearance at the window; neither 
a glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer, — any 
phrase of light would express something far 
402 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

brighter than this doubtful perception, or sense, 
rather, that there is a window there. Has 
it yet vanished ? No ! — yes ! — not quite ! 
And there is still the swarthy whiteness, — we 
shall venture to marry these ill-agreeing words, 
— the swarthy whiteness of Judge Pyncheon’s 
face. The features are all gone: there is only 
the paleness of them left. And how looks it 
now ? There is no window! There is no 
face! An infinite, inscrutable blackness has 
annihilated sight! Where is our universe ? 
All crumbled away from us ; and we, adrift in 
chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless 
wind, that go sighing and murmuring about in 
quest of what was once a world ! 

Is there no other sound? One other, and 
a fearful one. It is the ticking of the Judge’s 
watch, which, ever since Hepzibah left the 
room in search of Clifford, he has been hold¬ 
ing in his hand. Be the cause what it may, 
this little, quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time’s 
pulse, repeating its small strokes with such 
busy regularity, in Judge Pyncheon’s motion¬ 
less hand, has an effect of terror, which we do 
not find in any other accompaniment of the 
scene. 

But, listen! That puff of the breeze was 
louder; it had a tone unlike the dreary and 
sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and 
afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, 
403 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


for five days past. The wind has veered 
about! It now comes boisterously from the 
northwest, and, taking hold of the aged frame¬ 
work of the Seven Gables, gives it a shake, 
like a wrestler that would try strength with his 
antagonist. Another and another sturdy tus¬ 
sle with the blast ! The old house creaks 
again, and makes a vociferous but somewhat 
unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat (the 
big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly 
in complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as 
befits their century and a half of hostile inti¬ 
macy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of 
a bluster roars behind the fire-board. A door 
has slammed above stairs. A window, per¬ 
haps, has been left open, or else is driven in 
by an unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, 
beforehand, what wonderful wind instruments 
are these old timber mansions, and how haunted 
with the strangest noises, which immediately 
begin to sing, and sigh, and sob, and shriek, 
— and to smite with sledge-hammers, airy but 
ponderous, in some distant chamber, — and to 
tread along the entries as with stately footsteps, 
and rustle up and down the staircase, as with 
silks miraculously stiff,— whenever the gale 
catches the house with a window open, and 
gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an 
attendant spirit here ! It is too awful! This 
clamor of the wind through the lonely house; 

404 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


the Judge's quietude, as he sits invisible; and 
that pertinacious ticking of his watch! 

As regards Judge Pyncheon’s invisibility, 
however, that matter will soon be remedied. 
The northwest wind has swept the sky clear. 
The window is distinctly seen. Through its 
panes, moreover, we dimly catch the sweep of 
the dark, clustering foliage outside, fluttering 
with a constant irregularity of movement, and 
letting in a peep of starlight, now here, now 
there. Oftener than any other object, these 
glimpses illuminate the Judge’s face. But here 
comes more effectual light. Observe that sil¬ 
very dance upon the upper branches of the 
pear-tree, and now a little lower, and now on 
the whole mass of boughs, while, through their 
shifting intricacies, the moonbeams fall aslant 
into the room. They play over the Judge’s 
figure and show that he has not stirred through¬ 
out the hours of darkness. They follow the 
shadows, in changeful sport, across his unchan¬ 
ging features. They gleam upon his watch. 
His grasp conceals the dial-plate ; but we know 
that the faithful hands have met; for one of 
the city clocks tells midnight. 

A man of sturdy understanding, like Judge 
Pyncheon, cares no more for twelve o’clock at 
night than for the corresponding hour of noon. 
However just the parallel drawn, in some of the 
preceding pages, between his Puritan ancestor 
405 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


and himself, it fails in this point. The Pyn- 
cheon of two centuries ago, in common with 
most of his contemporaries, professed his full 
belief in spiritual ministrations, although reck¬ 
oning them chiefly of a malignant character. 
The Pyncheon of to-night, who sits in yonder 
armchair, believes in no such nonsense. Such, 
at least, was his creed, some few hours since. 
H is hair will not bristle, therefore, at the sto¬ 
ries which — in times when chimney-corners 
had benches in them, where old people sat pok¬ 
ing into the ashes of the past, and raking out 
traditions like live coals — used to be told about 
this very room of his ancestral house. In fact, 
these tales are too absurd to bristle even child¬ 
hood’s hair. What sense, meaning, or moral, 
for example, such as even ghost stories should 
be susceptible of, can be traced in the ridiculous 
legend, that, at midnight, all the dead Pyncheons 
are bound to assemble in this parlor? And, 
pray, for what ? Why, to see whether the por¬ 
trait of their ancestor still keeps its place upon 
the wall, in compliance with his testamentary 
directions! Is it worth while to come out of 
their graves for that ? 

We are tempted to make a little sport with 
the idea. Ghost stories are hardly to be treated 
seriously any longer. The family party of the 
defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this 
wise. 


406 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

First comes the ancestor himself, in his black 
cloak, steeple-hat, and trunk-breeches, girt about 
the waist with a leathern belt, in which hangs 
his steel-hilted sword ; he has a long staff in his 
hand, such as gentlemen in advanced life used 
to carry, as much for the dignity of the thing 
as for the support to be derived from it. He 
looks up at the portrait; a thing of no sub¬ 
stance, gazing at its own painted image! All is 
safe. The picture is still there. The purpose 
of his brain has been kept sacred thus long after 
the man himself has sprouted up in graveyard 
grass. See ! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and 
tries the frame. All safe ! But is that a smile ? 
— is it not, rather, a frown of deadly import, 
that darkens over the shadow of his features ? 
The stout Colonel is dissatisfied ! So decided 
is his look of discontent as to impart additional 
distinctness to his features; through which, 
nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and flickers 
on the wall beyond. Something has strangely 
vexed the ancestor ! With a grim shake of the 
head, he turns away. Here come other Pyn- 
cheons, the whole tribe, in their half a dozen 
generations, jostling and elbowing one another, 
to reach the picture. We behold aged men and 
grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiff¬ 
ness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated 
officer of the old French war ; and there comes 
the shop-keeping Pyncheon of a century ago, 
407 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


with the ruffles turned back from his wrists; 
and there the periwigged and brocaded gentle¬ 
man of the artist's legend, with the beautiful 
and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out of 
her virgin grave. All try the picture-frame. 
What do these ghostly people seek ? A mother 
lifts her child, that his little hands may touch it! 
There is evidently a mystery about the picture, 
that perplexes these poor Pyncheons when they 
ought to be at rest. In a corner, meanwhile, 
stands the figure of an elderly man, in a leathern 
jerkin and breeches, with a carpenter's rule 
sticking out of his side pocket; he points his 
finger at the bearded Colonel and his descend¬ 
ants, nodding, jeering, mocking, and finally 
bursting into obstreperous, though inaudible 
laughter. 

Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have 
partly lost the power of restraint and guidance. 
We distinguish an unlooked-for figure in our 
visionary scene. Among those ancestral peo¬ 
ple there is a young man, dressed in the very 
fashion of to-day: he wears a dark frock-coat, 
almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, 
gaiter boots of patent leather, and has a finely 
wrought gold chain across his breast, and a lit¬ 
tle silver-headed whalebone stick in his hand. 
Were we to meet this figure at noonday, we 
should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, 
the Judge's only surviving child, who has been 
408 


A mystery about the picture 























































































' n p ,\V(W \v 







































GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


spending the last two years in foreign travel. 
If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? 
If dead, what a misfortune ! The old Pyncheon 
property, together with the great estate acquired 
by the young man’s father, would devolve on 
whom ? On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hep- 
zibah, and rustic little Phoebe ! But another and 
a greater marvel greets us ! Can we believe our 
eyes ? A stout, elderly gentleman has made his 
appearance ; he has an aspect of eminent respec¬ 
tability, wears a black coat and pantaloons, of 
roomy width, and might be pronounced scru¬ 
pulously neat in his attire, but for a broad crim¬ 
son stain across his snowy neckcloth and down 
his shirt-bosom. Is it the Judge, or no ? How 
can it be Judge Pyncheon? We discern his 
figure, as plainly as the flickering moonbeams 
can show us anything, still seated in the oaken 
chair ! Be the apparition whose it may, it ad¬ 
vances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, 
tries to peep behind it, and turns away, with a 
frown as black as the ancestral one. 

The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no 
means be considered as forming an actual por¬ 
tion of our story. We were betrayed into this 
brief extravagance by the quiver of the moon¬ 
beams ; they dance hand-in-hand with shadows, 
and are reflected in the looking-glass, which, 
you are aware, is always a kind of window or 
doorway into the spiritual world. We needed 
409 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


relief, moreover, from our too long and exclusive 
contemplation of that figure in the chair. This 
wild wind, too, has tossed our thoughts into 
strange confusion, but without tearing them 
away from their one determined centre. Yon¬ 
der leaden Judge sits immovably upon our soul. 
Will he never stir again ? We shall go mad 
unless he stirs ! You may the better estimate 
his quietude by the fearlessness of a little mouse, 
which sits on its hind legs, in a streak of moon¬ 
light, close by Judge Pyncheon’s foot, and 
seems to meditate a journey of exploration over 
this great black bulk. Ha ! what has startled the 
nimble little mouse ? It is the visage of grimal¬ 
kin, outside of the window, where he appears 
to have posted himself for a deliberate watch. 
This grimalkin has a very ugly look. Is it a 
cat watching for a mouse, or the devil for a 
human soul ? Would we could scare him from 
the window ! 

Thank Heaven, the night is well-nigh past! 
The moonbeams have no longer so silvery a 
gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the black¬ 
ness of the shadows among which they fall. 
They are paler now; the shadows look gray, 
not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. 
What is the hour ? Ah ! the watch has at last 
ceased to tick; for the Judge's forgetful fingers 
neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o’clock, 
being half an hour or so before his ordinary 
410 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 


bedtime, — and it has run down, for the first 
time in five years. But the great world-clock 
of Time still keeps its beat. The dreary night 
— for, oh, how dreary seems its haunted waste, 
behind us ! — gives place to a fresh, transpar¬ 
ent, cloudless morn. Blessed, blessed radiance ! 
The day-beam — even what little of it finds its 
way into this always dusky parlor — seems part 
of the universal benediction, annulling evil, and 
rendering all goodness possible, and happiness 
attainable. Will Judge Pyncheon now rise up 
from his chair ? Will he go forth, and receive 
the early sunbeams on his brow ? Will he begin 
this new day, — which God has smiled upon, 
and blessed, and given to mankind, — will he 
begin it with better purposes than the many 
that have been spent amiss ? Or are all the 
deep-laid schemes of yesterday as stubborn in 
his heart, and as busy in his brain, as ever ? 

In this latter case, there is much to do. Will 
the Judge still insist with Hepzibah on the 
interview with Clifford ? Will he buy a safe, 
elderly gentleman’s horse? Will he persuade 
the purchaser of the old Pyncheon property to 
relinquish the bargain in his favor? Will he 
see his family physician, and obtain a medicine 
that shall preserve him, to be an honor and 
blessing to his race, until the utmost term of 
patriarchal longevity ? Will Judge Pyncheon, 
above all, make due apologies to that company 
411 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


of honorable friends, and satisfy them that his 
absence from the festive board was unavoidable, 
and so fully retrieve himself in their good opin¬ 
ion that he shall yet be Governor of Massa¬ 
chusetts ? And all these great purposes accom¬ 
plished, will he walk the streets again, with that 
dog-day smile of elaborate benevolence, sultry 
enough to tempt flies to come and buzz in it ? 
Or will he, after the tomb-like seclusion of the 
past day and night, go forth a humbled and 
repentant man, sorrowful, gentle, seeking no 
profit, shrinking from worldly honor, hardly 
daring to love God, but bold to love his fel¬ 
low man, and to do him what good he may? 
Will he bear about with him, — no odious grin 
of feigned benignity, insolent in its pretence, 
and loathsome in its falsehood, — but the ten¬ 
der sadness of a contrite heart, broken, at last, 
beneath its own weight of sin? For it is our 
belief, whatever show of honor he may have 
piled upon it, that there was heavy sin at the 
base of this man's being. 

Rise up, Judge Pyncheon ! The morning 
sunshine glimmers through the foliage, and, 
beautiful and holy as it is, shuns not to kindle 
up your face. Rise up, thou subtle, worldly, 
selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite, and make thy 
choice whether still to be subtle, worldly, self¬ 
ish, iron-hearted, and hypocritical, or to tear 
these sins out of thy nature, though they bring 
412 


GOVERNOR PYNCHEON 

the life-blood with them ! The Avenger is 
upon thee ! Rise up, before it be too late ! 

What! Thou art not stirred by this last 
appeal? No, not a jot! And there we see a 
fly, — one of your common house-flies, such as 
are always buzzing on the window-pane, — 
which has smelt out Governor Pyncheon, and 
alights, now on his forehead, now on his chin, 
and now. Heaven help us! is creeping over the 
bridge of his nose, towards the would-be chief 
magistrate’s wide-open eyes ! Canst thou not 
brush the fly away ? Art thou too sluggish ? 
Thou man, that hadst so many busy projects 
yesterday ! Art thou too weak, that wast so 
powerful ? Not brush away a fly ? Nay, then, 
we give thee up ! 

And hark ! the shop-bell rings. After hours 
like these latter ones, through which we have 
borne our heavy tale, it is good to be made 
sensible that there is a living world, and that 
even this old, lonely mansion retains some man¬ 
ner of connection with it. We breathe more 
freely, emerging from Judge Pyncheon’s pre¬ 
sence into the street before the Seven Gables. 
4i3 


XIX 


ALICE S POSIES 


NCLE VENNER, trundling a wheel¬ 



barrow, was the earliest person stir- 


ring in the neighborhood the day after 
the storm. 

Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of 
the Seven Gables, was a far pleasanter scene 
than a by-lane, confined by shabby fences, and 
bordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner 
class, could reasonably be expected to present. 
Nature made sweet amends, that morning, for 
the five unkindly days which had preceded it. 
It would have been enough to live for, merely 
to look up at the wide benediction of the sky, 
or as much of it as was visible between the 
houses, genial once more with sunshine. Every 
object was agreeable, whether to be gazed at in 
the breadth, or examined more minutely. Such, 
for example, were the well-washed pebbles and 
gravel of the sidewalk; even the sky-reflecting 
pools in the centre of the street; and the grass, 
now freshly verdant, that crept along the base 
of the fences, on the other side of which, if one 


414 



ALICE’S POSIES 

peeped over, was seen the multifarious growth 
of gardens. Vegetable productions, of what¬ 
ever kind, seemed more than negatively happy, 
in the juicy warmth and abundance of their 
life. The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great 
circumference, was all alive, and full of the 
morning sun and a sweet-tempered little breeze, 
which lingered within this verdant sphere, and 
set a thousand leafy tongues a-whispering all 
at once. This aged tree appeared to have suf¬ 
fered nothing from the gale. It had kept its 
boughs unshattered, and its full complement of 
leaves; and the whole in perfect verdure, ex¬ 
cept a single branch, that, by the earlier change 
with which the elm-tree sometimes prophesies 
the autumn, had been transmuted to bright 
gold. It was like the golden branch that 
gained /Eneas and the Sibyl admittance into 
Hades. 

This one mystic branch hung down before 
the main entrance of the Seven Gables, so nigh 
the ground that any passer-by might have stood 
on tiptoe and plucked it off. Presented at the 
door, it would have been a symbol of his right 
to enter, and be made acquainted with all the 
secrets of the house. So little faith is due to 
external appearance, that there was really an 
inviting aspect over the venerable edifice, con¬ 
veying an idea that its history must be a deco¬ 
rous and happy one, and such as would be de- 
4i5 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


lightful for a fireside tale. Its windows gleamed 
cheerfully in the slanting sunlight. The lines 
and tufts of green moss, here and there, seemed 
pledges of familiarity and sisterhood with Na¬ 
ture ; as if this human dwelling-place, being of 
such old date, had established its prescriptive 
title among primeval oaks and whatever other 
objects, by virtue of their long continuance, 
have acquired a gracious right to be. A per¬ 
son of imaginative temperament, while passing 
by the house, would turn, once and again, 
and peruse it well: its many peaks, consenting 
together in the clustered chimney; the deep 
projection over its basement-story ; the arched 
window, imparting a look, if not of grandeur, 
yet of antique gentility, to the broken portal 
over which it opened ; the luxuriance of gigan¬ 
tic burdocks, near the threshold; he would 
note all these characteristics, and be conscious 
of something deeper than he saw. He would 
conceive the mansion to have been the resi¬ 
dence of the stubborn old Puritan, Integrity, 
who, dying in some forgotten generation, had 
left a blessing in all its rooms and chambers, 
the efficacy of which was to be seen in the reli¬ 
gion, honesty, moderate competence, or upright 
poverty and solid happiness, of his descendants, 
to this day. 

One object, above all others, would take root 
in the imaginative observer’s memory. It was 
416 


ALICE’S POSIES 


the great tuft of flowers, — weeds, you would 
have called them, only a week ago, — the tuft 
of crimson-spotted flowers, in the angle between 
the two front gables. The old people used 
to give them the name of Alice’s Posies, in 
remembrance of fair Alice Pyncheon, who was 
believed to have brought their seeds from Italy. 
They were flaunting in rich beauty and full 
bloom to-day, and seemed, as it were, a mystic 
expression that something within the house was 
consummated. 

It was but little after sunrise, when Uncle 
Venner made his appearance, as aforesaid, im¬ 
pelling a wheelbarrow along the street. He 
was going his matutinal rounds to collect cab¬ 
bage-leaves, turnip-tops, potato-skins, and the 
miscellaneous refuse of the dinner-pot, which 
the thrifty housewives of the neighborhood 
were accustomed to put aside, as fit only to feed 
a pig. Uncle Venner’s pig was fed entirely, 
and kept in prime order, on these eleemosynary 
contributions; insomuch that the patched phi¬ 
losopher used to promise that, before retiring to 
his farm, he would make a feast of the portly 
grunter, and invite all his neighbors to partake 
of the joints and spare-ribs which they had 
helped to fatten. Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon’s 
housekeeping had so greatly improved, since 
Clifford became a member of the family, that 
her share of the banquet would have been no 
4U 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


lean one; and Uncle Venner, accordingly, was 
a good deal disappointed not to find the large 
earthen pan, full of fragmentary eatables, that 
ordinarily awaited his coming at the back door¬ 
step of the Seven Gables. 

“ I never knew Miss Hepzibah so forgetful 
before,” said the patriarch to himself. “ She 
must have had a dinner yesterday, — no ques¬ 
tion of that! She always has one, nowadays. 
So where ’s the pot-liquor and potato-skins, I 
ask ? Shall I knock, and see if she’s stirring 
yet ? No, no, — ’t won't do ! If little Phoebe 
was about the house, I should not mind knock¬ 
ing ; but Miss Hepzibah, likely as not, would 
scowl down at me out of the window, and look 
cross, even if she felt pleasantly. So, I ’ll come 
back at noon.” 

With these reflections, the old man was shut¬ 
ting the gate of the little back yard. Creaking 
on its hinges, however, like every other gate 
and door about the premises, the sound reached 
the ears of the occupant of the northern gable, 
one of the windows of which had a side-view 
towards the gate. 

“ Good-morning, Uncle Venner ! ” said the 
daguerreotypist, leaning out of the window. 
“ Do you hear nobody stirring ? ” 

“Not a soul,” said the man of patches. 
“ But that’s no wonder. ’T is barely half an 
hour past sunrise, yet. But I'm really glad to 
418 


ALICE'S POSIES 


see you, Mr. Holgrave! There's a strange, 
lonesome look about this side of the house; so 
that my heart misgave me, somehow or other, 
and I felt as if there was nobody alive in it. 
The front of the house looks a good deal cheer¬ 
ier ; and Alice’s Posies are blooming there 
beautifully ; and if I were a young man, Mr. 
Holgrave, my sweetheart should have one of 
those flowers in her bosom, though I risked my 
neck climbing for it! Well, and did the wind 
keep you awake last night ? ” 

“ It did, indeed ! ” answered the artist, smil¬ 
ing. “ If I were a believer in ghosts,—and 
I don’t quite know whether I am or not, — I 
should have concluded that all the old Pyn- 
cheons were running riot in the lower rooms, 
especially in Miss Hepzibah’s part of the house. 
But it is very quiet now.” 

“ Yes, Miss Hepzibah will be apt to over¬ 
sleep herself, after being disturbed, all night, 
with the racket,” said Uncle Venner. “ But it 
would be odd, now, would n’t it, if the Judge 
had taken both his cousins into the country 
along with him ? I saw him go into the shop 
yesterday.” 

“ At what hour ? ” inquired Holgrave. 

“ Oh, along in the forenoon,” said the old 
man. “ Well, well ! I must go my rounds, 
and so must my wheelbarrow. But I ’ll be back 
here at dinner-time; for my pig likes a din- 
419 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ner as well as a breakfast. No meal-time, and 
no sort of victuals, ever seems to come amiss 
to my pig. Good-morning to you! And, Mr. 
Holgrave, if I were a young man, like you, 
I’d get one of Alice’s Posies, and keep it in 
water till Phoebe comes back.” 

<c I have heard,” said the daguerreotypist, as 
he drew in his head, “ that the water of Maule’s 
well suits those flowers best.” 

Here the conversation ceased, and Uncle 
Venner went on his way. For half an hour 
longer, nothing disturbed the repose of the 
Seven Gables ; nor was there any visitor, except 
a carrier-boy, who, as he passed the front door¬ 
step, threw down one of his newspapers; for 
Hepzibah, of late, had regularly taken it in. 
After a while, there came a fat woman, making 
prodigious speed, and stumbling as she ran up 
the steps of the shop-door. Her face glowed 
with fire-heat, and, it being a pretty warm morn¬ 
ing, she bubbled and hissed, as it were, as if 
all a-fry with chimney warmth, and summer 
warmth, and the warmth of her own corpulent 
velocity. She tried the shop-door ; it was fast. 
She tried it again, with so angry a jar that the 
bell tinkled angrily back at her. 

“ The deuce take Old Maid Pyncheon! ” 
muttered the irascible housewife. <c Think of 
her pretending to set up a cent-shop, and then 
lying abed till noon ! These are what she calls 
420 


ALICE’S POSIES 


gentlefolk’s airs, I suppose ! But I ’ll either 
start her ladyship, or break the door down ! ” 
She shook it accordingly, and the bell, hav¬ 
ing a spiteful little temper of its own, rang ob¬ 
streperously, making its remonstrances heard, 
— not, indeed, by the ears for which they were 
intended, — but by a good lady on the opposite 
side of the street. She opened her window, 
and addressed the impatient applicant. 

“ You ’ll find nobody there, Mrs. Gubbins.” 
“ But I must and will find somebody here ! ” 
cried Mrs. Gubbins, inflicting another outrage 
on the bell. “ I want a half-pound of pork, 
to fry some first-rate flounders for Mr. Gub- 
bins’s breakfast; and, lady or not, Old Maid 
Pyncheon shall get up and serve me with it! ” 
“ But do hear reason, Mrs. Gubbins ! ” re¬ 
sponded the lady opposite. “ She, and her bro¬ 
ther too, have both gone to their cousin, Judge 
Pyncheon’s, at his country-seat. There’s not 
a soul in the house, but that young daguerreo¬ 
type man that sleeps in the north gable. I saw 
old Hepzibah and Clifford go away yesterday; 
and a queer couple of ducks they were, pad¬ 
dling through the mud-puddles ! They ’re 
gone, I ’ll assure you.” 

“ And how do you know they ’re gone to the 
Judge’s ? ” asked Mrs. Gubbins. u He’s a 
rich man ; and there’s been a quarrel between 
him and Hepzibah this many a day, because he 
421 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

won’t give her a living. That’s the main rea¬ 
son of her setting up a cent-shop.” 

“ I know that well enough,” said the neigh¬ 
bor. “ But they ’re gone, — that’s one thing 
certain. And who but a blood relation, that 
could n’t help himself, I ask you, would take in 
that awful-tempered old maid, and that dread¬ 
ful Clifford ? That’s it, you may be sure.” 

Mrs. Gubbins took her departure, still brim¬ 
ming over with hot wrath against the absent 
Hepzibah. For another half-hour, or, perhaps, 
considerably more, there was almost as much 
quiet on the outside of the house as within. 
The elm, however, made a pleasant, cheerful, 
sunny sigh, responsive to the breeze that was 
elsewhere imperceptible; a swarm of insects 
buzzed merrily under its drooping shadow, and 
became specks of light whenever they darted 
into the sunshine ; a locust sang, once or twice, 
in some inscrutable seclusion of the tree; and 
a solitary little bird, with plumage of pale gold, 
came and hovered about Alice’s Posies. 

At last our small acquaintance, Ned Higgins, 
trudged up the street, on his way to school; 
and happening, for the first time in a fortnight, 
to be the possessor of a cent, he could by no 
means get past the shop-door of the Seven Ga¬ 
bles. But it would not open. Again and again, 
however, and half a dozen other agains, with 
the inexorable pertinacity of a child intent upon 
422 


ALICE’S POSIES 


some object important to itself, did he renew 
his efforts for admittance. He had, doubtless, 
set his heart upon an elephant; or, possibly, 
with Hamlet, he meant to eat a crocodile. In 
response to his more violent attacks, the bell 
gave, now and then, a moderate tinkle, but 
could not be stirred into clamor by any exertion 
of the little fellow’s childish and tiptoe strength. 
Holding by the door-handle, he peeped through 
a crevice of the curtain, and saw that the inner 
door, communicating with the passage towards 
the parlor, was closed. 

“ Miss Pyncheon ! ” screamed the child, rap¬ 
ping on the window-pane, “ I want an ele¬ 
phant ! ” 

There being no answer to several repetitions 
of the summons, Ned began to grow impatient; 
and his little pot of passion quickly boiling 
over, he picked up a stone, with a naughty 
purpose to fling it through the window ; at the 
same time blubbering and sputtering with wrath. 
A man — one of two who happened to be pass- 
ing by — caught the urchin’s arm. 

“ What’s the trouble, old gentleman ? ” he 
asked. 

“ I want old Hepzibah, or Phoebe, or any 
of them!” answered Ned, sobbing. “They 
won’t open the door ; and I can’t get my ele¬ 
phant ! ” 

“ Go to school, you little scamp ! ” said the 

423 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


man. “ There’s another cent-shop round the 
corner. ’T is very strange, Dixey,” added he 
to his companion, “ what’s become of all these 
Pyncheons ! Smith, the livery-stable keeper, 
tells me Judge Pyncheon put his horse up yes¬ 
terday, to stand till after dinner, and has not 
taken him away yet. And one of the Judge’s 
hired men has been in, this morning, to make 
inquiry about him. He *s a kind of person, 
they say, that seldom breaks his habits, or stays 
out o’ nights.” 

“ Oh, he ’ll turn up safe enough ! ” said 
Dixey. “ And as for Old Maid Pyncheon, 
take my word for it, she has run in debt, and 
gone off from her creditors. I foretold, you 
remember, the first morning she set up shop, 
that her devilish scowl would frighten away 
customers. They could n’t stand it! ” 

cc I never thought she’d make it go,” re¬ 
marked his friend. “ This business of cent- 
shops is overdone among the women-folks. My 
wife tried it, and lost five dollars on her out¬ 
lay !” 

“ Poor business ! ” said Dixey, shaking his 
head. “ Poor business ! ” 

In the course of the morning, there were 
various other attempts to open a communication 
with the supposed inhabitants of this silent and 
impenetrable mansion. The man of root-beer 
came, in his neatly painted wagon, with a couple 
424 


ALICE’S POSIES 


of dozen full bottles, to be exchanged for empty 
ones ; the baker, with a lot of crackers which 
Hepzibah had ordered for her retail custom ; 
the butcher, with a nice titbit which he fancied 
she would be eager to secure for Clifford. Had 
any observer of these proceedings been aware 
of the fearful secret hidden within the house, it 
would have affected him with a singular shape 
and modification of horror, to see the current 
of human life making this small eddy here¬ 
abouts, — whirling sticks, straws and all such 
trifles, round and round, right over the black 
depth where a dead corpse lay unseen ! 

The butcher was so much in earnest with his 
sweetbread of lamb, or whatever the dainty 
might be, that he tried every accessible door of 
the Seven Gables, and at length came round 
again to the shop, where he ordinarily found 
admittance. 

<c It’s a nice article, and I know the old lady 
would jump at it,” said he to himself. cc She 
can’t be gone away ! In fifteen years that I 
have driven my cart through Pyncheon Street, 
I *ve never known her to be away from home ; 
though often enough, to be sure, a man might 
knock all day without bringing her to the door. 
But that was when she’d only herself to pro¬ 
vide for.” 

Peeping through the same crevice of the cur¬ 
tain where, only a little while before, the urchin 

425 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


of elephantine appetite had peeped, the butcher 
beheld the inner door, not closed, as the child 
had seen it, but ajar, and almost wide open. 
However it might have happened, it was the 
fact. Through the passageway there was a dark 
vista into the lighter but still obscure interior 
of the parlor. It appeared to the butcher that 
he could pretty clearly discern what seemed to 
be the stalwart legs, clad in black pantaloons, of 
a man sitting in a large oaken chair, the back 
of which concealed all the remainder of his fig¬ 
ure. This contemptuous tranquillity on the 
part of an occupant of the house, in response 
to the butcher’s indefatigable efforts to attract 
notice, so piqued the man of flesh that he 
determined to withdraw. 

cc So,” thought he, “ there sits Old Maid 
Pyncheon’s bloody brother, while I’ve been 
giving myself all this trouble ! Why, if a hog 
had n’t more manners, I’d stick him ! I call it 
demeaning a man’s business to trade with such 
people ; and from this time forth, if they want 
a sausage or an ounce of liver, they shall run 
after the cart for it! ” 

He tossed the titbit angrily into his cart, and 
drove off in a pet. 

Not a great while afterwards there was a 
sound of music turning the corner and ap¬ 
proaching down the street, with several inter¬ 
vals of silence, and then a renewed and nearer 
426 


ALICE’S POSIES 

outbreak of brisk melody. A mob of children 
was seen moving onward, or stopping, in unison 
with the sound, which appeared to proceed 
from the centre of the throng; so that they 
were loosely bound together by slender strains 
of harmony, and drawn along captive ; with 
ever and anon an accession of some little fellow 
in an apron and straw hat, capering forth from 
door or gateway. Arriving under the shadow 
of the Pyncheon Elm, it proved to be the 
Italian boy, who, with his monkey and show 
of puppets, had once before played his hurdy- 
gurdy beneath the arched window. The plea¬ 
sant face of Phoebe — and doubtless, too, the 
liberal recompense which she had flung him — 
still dwelt in his remembrance. His expressive 
features kindled up, as he recognized the spot 
where this trifling incident of his erratic life had 
chanced. He entered the neglected yard (now 
wilder than ever, with its growth of hog-weed 
and burdock), stationed himself on the door¬ 
step of the main entrance, and, opening his 
show-box, began to play. Each individual of 
the automatic community forthwith set to work, 
according to his or her proper vocation : the 
monkey, taking off his Highland bonnet, 
bowed and scraped to the bystanders most ob¬ 
sequiously, with ever an observant eye to pick 
up a stray cent; and the young foreigner him¬ 
self, as he turned the crank of his machine, 
427 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


glanced upward to the arched window, expect¬ 
ant of a presence that would make his music the 
livelier and sweeter. The throng of children 
stood near; some on the sidewalk; some within 
the yard; two or three establishing themselves 
on the very doorstep ; and one squatting on 
the threshold. Meanwhile, the locust kept 
singing in the great old Pyncheon Elm. 

“ I don't hear anybody in the house,” said 
one of the children to another. “ The monkey 
won't pick up anything here.” 

“ There is somebody at home,” affirmed the 
urchin on the threshold. “ I heard a step ! ” 

Still the young Italian's eye turned sidelong 
upward; and it really seemed as if the touch 
of genuine, though slight and almost playful, 
emotion communicated a juicier sweetness to 
the dry, mechanical process of his minstrelsy. 
These wanderers are readily responsive to any 
natural kindness — be it no more than a smile, 
or a word itself not understood, but only a 
warmth in it — which befalls them on the road¬ 
side of life. They remember these things, be¬ 
cause they are the little enchantments which, 
for the instant, — for the space that reflects a 
landscape in a soap-bubble, — build up a home 
about them. Therefore, the Italian boy would 
not be discouraged by the heavy silence with 
which the old house seemed resolute to clog 
the vivacity of his instrument. He persisted 
428 



ALICE’S POSIES 


in his melodious appeals ; he still looked up¬ 
ward, trusting that his dark, alien countenance 
would soon be brightened by Phoebe’s sunny 
aspect. Neither could he be willing to depart 
without again beholding Clifford, whose sensi¬ 
bility, like Phoebe’s smile, had talked a kind 
of heart’s language to the foreigner. He re¬ 
peated all his music over and over again, until 
his auditors were getting weary. So were the 
little wooden people in his show-box, and the 
monkey most of all. There was no response, 
save the singing of the locust. 

<c No children live in this house,” said a 
schoolboy, at last. “ Nobody lives here but an 
old maid and an old man. You ’ll get nothing 
here ! Why don’t you go along ? ” 

“You fool, you, why do you tell him?” 
whispered a shrewd little Yankee, caring nothing 
for the music, but a good deal for the cheap 
rate at which it was had. “ Let him play as 
he likes ! If there’s nobody to pay him, that’s 
his own lookout! ” 

Once more, however, the Italian ran over his 
round of melodies. To the common observer 
—who could understand nothing of the case, 
except the music and the sunshine on the hither 
side of the door — it might have been amusing 
to watch the pertinacity of the street performer. 
Will he succeed at last ? Will that stubborn 
door be suddenly flung open ? Will a group of 
429 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


joyous children, the young ones of the house, 
come dancing, shouting, laughing, into the open 
air, and cluster round the show-box, looking 
with eager merriment at the puppets, and toss¬ 
ing each a copper for long-tailed Mammon, the 
monkey, to pick up ? 

But to us, who know the inner heart of the 
Seven Gables as well as its exterior face, there is 
a ghastly effect in this repetition of light popu¬ 
lar tunes at its doorstep. It would be an ugly 
business, indeed, if Judge Pyncheon (who 
would not have cared a fig for Paganini’s fiddle 
in his most harmonious mood) should make his 
appearance at the door, with a bloody shirt- 
bosom, and a grim frown on his swarthily white 
visage, and motion the foreign vagabond away ! 
Was ever before such a grinding out of jigs and 
waltzes, where nobody was in the cue to dance ? 
Yes, very often. This contrast, or intermin¬ 
gling of tragedy with mirth, happens daily, 
hourly, momently. The gloomy and desolate 
old house, deserted of life, and with awful Death 
sitting sternly in its solitude, was the emblem 
of many a human heart, which, nevertheless, 
is compelled to hear the thrill and echo of the 
world’s gayety around it. 

Before the conclusion of the Italian’s per¬ 
formance, a couple of men happened to be pass¬ 
ing, on their way to dinner. 

“ I say, you young French fellow! ” called 
43° 



He persist: s ir. hi: ur el-:a::u: tpzJis 
















































ALICE’S POSIES 


out one of them, — “ come away from that 
doorstep, and go somewhere else with your non¬ 
sense ! The Pyncheon family live there ; and 
they are in great trouble, just about this time. 
They don't feel musical to-day. It is reported 
all over town that Judge Pyncheon, who owns 
the house, has been murdered ; and the city 
marshal is going to look into the matter. So 
be off with you, at once ! ” 

As the Italian shouldered his hurdy-gurdy, 
he saw on the doorstep a card, which had been 
covered, all the morning, by the newspaper 
that the carrier had flung upon it, but was now 
shuffled into sight. He picked it up, and per¬ 
ceiving something written in pencil, gave it to 
the man to read. In fact, it was an engraved 
card of Judge Pyncheon's with certain pencilled 
memoranda on the back, referring to various 
businesses which it had been his purpose to 
transact during the preceding day. It formed 
a prospective epitome of the day's history; 
only that affairs had not turned out altogether 
in accordance with the programme. The card 
must have been lost from the Judge's vest 
pocket in his preliminary attempt to gain ac¬ 
cess by the main entrance of the house. Though 
well soaked with rain, it was still partially legi¬ 
ble. 

“ Look here, Dixey ! " cried the man. “ This 
has something to do with Judge Pyncheon. 

43 1 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


See! — here’s his name printed on it; and here, 
I suppose, is some of his handwriting.” 

“ Let’s go to the city marshal with it! ” said 
Dixey. C£ It may give him just the clew he 
wants. After all,” whispered he in his com¬ 
panion’s ear, “ it would be no wonder if the 
Judge has gone into that door and never come 
out again ! A certain cousin of his may have 
been at his old tricks. And Old Maid Pyn- 
cheon having got herself in debt by the cent- 
shop, — and the Judge’s pocket-book being 
well filled, — and bad blood amongst them 
already ! Put all these things together and 
see what they make ! ” 

“ Hush, hush ! ” whispered the other. “ It 
seems like a sin to be the first to speak of such 
a thing. But I think, with you, that we had 
better go to the city marshal.” 

<c Yes, yes!’’said Dixey. “Well! — I al¬ 
ways said there was something devilish in that 
woman’s scowl ! ” 

The men wheeled about, accordingly, and 
retraced their steps up the street. The Italian, 
also, made the best of his way off, with a part- 
ing glance up at the arched window. As for 
the children, they took to their heels, with one 
accord, and scampered as if some giant or ogre 
were in pursuit, until, at a good distance from 
the house, they stopped as suddenly and simul¬ 
taneously as they had set out. Their suscepti- 
43* 


ALICE’S POSIES 

ble nerves took an indefinite alarm from what 
they had overheard. Looking back at the gro¬ 
tesque peaks and shadowy angles of the old 
mansion, they fancied a gloom diffused about 
it which no brightness of the sunshine could 
dispel. An imaginary Hepzibah scowled and 
shook her finger at them, from several windows 
at the same moment. An imaginary Clifford 
— for (and it would have deeply wounded him 
to know it) he had always been a horror to these 
small people — stood behind the unreal Hep¬ 
zibah, making awful gestures, in a faded dress¬ 
ing-gown. Children are even more apt, if 
possible, than grown people, to catch the con¬ 
tagion of a panic terror. For the rest of the 
day, the more timid went whole streets about, 
for the sake of avoiding the Seven Gables; while 
the bolder signalized their hardihood by chal¬ 
lenging their comrades to race past the mansion 
at full speed. 

It could not have been more than half an 
hour after the disappearance of the Italian boy, 
with his unseasonable melodies, when a cab 
drove down the street. It stopped beneath the 
Pyncheon Elm; the cabman took a trunk, a 
canvas bag, and a bandbox, from the top of his 
vehicle, and deposited them on the doorstep of 
the old house ; a straw bonnet, and then the 
pretty figure of a young girl, came into view 
from the interior of the cab. It was Phoebe! 
433 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

Though not altogether so blooming as when 
she first tripped into our story, — for, in the 
few intervening weeks, her experiences had made 
her graver, more womanly, and deeper-eyed, in 
token of a heart that had begun to suspect its 
depths, — still there was the quiet glow of nat¬ 
ural sunshine over her. Neither had she for¬ 
feited her proper gift of making things look 
real, rather than fantastic, within her sphere. 
Yet we feel it to be a questionable venture, even 
for Phoebe, at this juncture, to cross the thresh¬ 
old of the Seven Gables. Is her healthful pre¬ 
sence potent enough to chase away the crowd 
of pale, hideous, and sinful phantoms, that have 
gained admittance there since her departure ? 
Or will she, likewise, fade, sicken, sadden, and 
grow into deformity, and be only another pallid 
phantom, to glide noiselessly up and down the 
stairs, and affright children as she pauses at the 
window ? 

At least, we would gladly forewarn the un¬ 
suspecting girl that there is nothing in human 
shape or substance to receive her, unless it be 
the figure of Judge Pyncheon, who — wretched 
spectacle that he is, and frightful in our remem¬ 
brance, since our night-long vigil with him! — 
still keeps his place in the oaken chair. 

Phoebe first tried the shop-door. It did not 
yield to her hand ; and the white curtain, drawn 
across the window which formed the upper sec- 
434 


ALICE’S POSIES 


tion of the door, struck her quick perceptive 
faculty as something unusual. Without mak¬ 
ing another effort to enter here, she betook her¬ 
self to the great portal, under the arched win¬ 
dow. Finding it fastened, she knocked. A 
reverberation came from the emptiness within. 
She knocked again, and a third time; and, lis¬ 
tening intently, fancied that the floor creaked, 
as if Hepzibah were coming, with her ordinary 
tiptoe movement, to admit her. But so dead 
a silence ensued upon this imaginary sound, 
that she began to question whether she might 
not have mistaken the house, familiar as she 
thought herself with its exterior. 

Her notice was now attracted by a child’s 
voice, at some distance. It appeared to call her 
name. Looking in the direction whence it pro¬ 
ceeded, Phoebe saw little Ned Higgins, a good 
way down the street, stamping, shaking his head 
violently, making deprecatory gestures with 
both hands, and shouting to her at mouth-wide 
screech. 

“ No, no, Phoebe ! ” he screamed. “Don’t 
you go in! There’s something wicked there ! 
Don’t — don’t — don’t go in ! ” 

But, as the little personage could not be in¬ 
duced to approach near enough to explain him¬ 
self, Phoebe concluded that he had been fright¬ 
ened, on some of his visits to the shop, by her 
cousin Hepzibah ; for the good lady’s manifes- 
435 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


tations, in truth, ran about an equal chance of 
scaring children out of their wits, or compelling 
them to unseemly laughter. Still, she felt the 
more, for this incident, how unaccountably si¬ 
lent and impenetrable the house had become. 
As her next resort, Phoebe made her way into 
the garden, where on so warm and bright a day 
as the present, she had little doubt of finding 
Clifford, and perhaps Hepzibah also, idling 
away the noontide in the shadow of the arbor. 
Immediately on her entering the garden gate, 
the family of hens half ran, half flew, to meet 
her; while a strange grimalkin, which was prowl¬ 
ing under the parlor window, took to his heels, 
clambered hastily over the fence, and vanished. 
The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and 
circular bench were still damp, and bestrewn 
with twigs and the disarray of the past storm. 
The growth of the garden seemed to have got 
quite out of bounds ; the weeds had taken ad¬ 
vantage of Phoebe’s absence, and the long-con¬ 
tinued rain, to run rampant over the flowers 
and kitchen vegetables. Maule’s well had over¬ 
flowed its stone border, and made a pool of for¬ 
midable breadth in that corner of the garden. 

The impression of the whole scene was that 
of a spot where no human foot had left its print 
for many preceding days, — probably not since 
Phoebe’s departure, — for she saw a side-comb 
of her own under the table of the arbor, where 
43 6 


ALICE’S POSIES 


it must have fallen on the last afternoon when 
she and Clifford sat there. 

The girl knew that her two relatives were 
capable of far greater oddities than that of shut¬ 
ting themselves up in their old house, as they 
appeared now to have done. Nevertheless, 
with indistinct misgivings of something amiss, 
and apprehensions to which she could not give 
shape, she approached the door that formed the 
customary communication between the house 
and garden. It was secured within, like the 
two which she had already tried. She knocked, 
however; and immediately, as if the applica¬ 
tion had been expected, the door was drawn 
open, by a considerable exertion of some unseen 
person’s strength, not wide, but far enough to 
afford her a sidelong entrance. As Hepzibah, 
in order not to expose herself to inspection 
from without, invariably opened a door in this 
manner, Phoebe necessarily concluded that it 
was her cousin who now admitted her. 

Without hesitation, therefore, she stepped 
across the threshold, and had no sooner entered 
than the door closed behind her. 

437 


XX 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 

P HCEBE, coming so suddenly from the 
sunny daylight, was altogether bedimmed 
in such density of shadow as lurked in 
most of the passages of the old house. She 
was not at first aware by whom she had been 
admitted. Before her eyes had adapted them¬ 
selves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own 
with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus 
imparting a welcome which caused her heart 
to leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of 
enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, not 
towards the parlor, but into a large and un¬ 
occupied apartment, which had formerly been 
the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. 
The sunshine came freely into all the uncur¬ 
tained windows of this room, and fell upon the 
dusty floor; so that Phoebe now clearly saw — 
what, indeed, had been no secret, after the 
encounter of a warm hand with hers — that it 
was not Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, 
to whom she owed her reception. The subtile, 
intuitive communication, or, rather, the vague 
and formless impression of something to be 
43 8 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


told, had made her yield unresistingly to his 
impulse. Without taking away her hand, she 
looked eagerly in his face, not quick to fore¬ 
bode evil, but unavoidably conscious that the 
state of the family had changed since her depar¬ 
ture, and therefore anxious for an explanation. 

The artist looked paler than ordinary ; there 
was a thoughtful and severe contraction of his 
forehead, tracing a deep, vertical line between 
the eyebrows. His smile, however, was full of 
genuine warmth, and had in it a joy, by far the 
most vivid expression that Phoebe had ever 
witnessed, shining out of the New England re¬ 
serve with which Holgrave habitually masked 
whatever lay near his heart. It was the look 
wherewith a man, brooding alone over some 
fearful object, in a dreary forest or illimitable 
desert, would recognize the familiar aspect of 
his dearest friend, bringing up all the peaceful 
ideas that belong to home, and the gentle cur¬ 
rent of every-day affairs. And yet, as he felt 
the necessity of responding to her look of in¬ 
quiry, the smile disappeared. 

“ I ought not to rejoice that you have come, 
Phoebe,” said he. “ We meet at a strange 
moment! ” 

“ What has happened ! ” she exclaimed. 
“ Why is the house so deserted ? Where are 
Hepzibah and Clifford ? ” 

“ Gone ! I cannot imagine where they are ! ” 
439 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


answered Holgrave. (< We are alone in the 
house ! ” 

“ Hepzibah and Clifford gone ? ” cried 
Phoebe. “ It is not possible ! And why have 
you brought me into this room, instead of the 
parlor ? Ah, something terrible has happened ! 
I must run and see ! ” 

“ No, no, Phoebe ! ” said Holgrave, holding 
her back. “ It is as I have told you. They 
are gone, and I know not whither. A terrible 
event has, indeed, happened, but not to them, 
nor, as I undoubtingly believe, through any 
agency of theirs. If I read your character 
rightly, Phoebe,” he continued, fixing his eyes 
on hers with stern anxiety, intermixed with 
tenderness, “ gentle as you are, and seeming to 
have your sphere among common things, you 
yet possess remarkable strength. You have 
wonderful poise, and a faculty which, when 
tested, will prove itself capable of dealing with 
matters that fall far out of the ordinary rule.” 

“ Oh, no, I am very weak! ” replied Phoebe, 
trembling. “ But tell me what has happened ! ” 

“ You are strong ! ” persisted Holgrave. 
“You must be both strong and wise ; for I am 
all astray, and need your counsel. It may be 
you can suggest the one right thing to do ! ” 

“ Tell me ! — tell me ! ” said Phoebe, all in a 
tremble. “ It oppresses, — it terrifies me, — 
this mystery ! Anything else 1 can bear! ” 

440 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 

The artist hesitated. Notwithstanding what 
he had just said, and most sincerely, in regard 
to the self-balancing power with which Phoebe 
impressed him, it still seemed almost wicked to 
bring the awful secret of yesterday to her know¬ 
ledge. It was like dragging a hideous shape of 
death into the cleanly and cheerful space before 
a household fire, where it would present all the 
uglier aspect, amid the decorousness of every¬ 
thing about it. Yet it could not be concealed 
from her ; she must needs know it. 

“ Phoebe,” said he, “ do you remember 
this ? ” 

He put into her hand a daguerreotype ; the 
same that he had shown her at their first inter¬ 
view in the garden, and which so strikingly 
brought out the hard and relentless traits of the 
original. 

“ What has this to do with Hepzibah and 
Clifford ? ” asked Phoebe, with impatient sur¬ 
prise that Holgrave should so trifle with her at 
such a moment. “ It is Judge Pyncheon! You 
have shown it to me before ! ” 

“ But here is the same face, taken within this 
half-hour,” said the artist, presenting her with 
another miniature. cc I had just finished it when 
I heard you at the door.” 

“ This is death ! ” shuddered Phoebe, turning 
very pale. “ Judge Pyncheon dead ! ” 

“ Such as there represented,” said Holgrave, 
441 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“he sits in the next room. The Judge is dead, 
and Clifford and Hepzibah have vanished ! I 
know no more. All beyond is conjecture. On 
returning to my solitary chamber, last evening, 
I noticed no light, either in the parlor, or Hep- 
zibah’s room, or Clifford’s ; no stir nor footstep 
about the house. This morning, there was the 
same death-like quiet. From my window, I 
overheard the testimony of a neighbor, that 
your relatives were seen leaving the house in 
the midst of yesterday’s storm. A rumor 
reached me, too, of Judge Pyncheon being 
missed. A feeling which I cannot describe — 
an indefinite sense of some catastrophe, or con¬ 
summation — impelled me to make my way 
into this part of the house, where I discovered 
what you see. As a point of evidence that may 
be useful to Clifford, and also as a memorial 
valuable to myself, — for, Phoebe, there are 
hereditary reasons that connect me strangely 
with that man’s fate, — I used the means at my 
disposal to preserve this pictorial record of 
Judge Pyncheon’s death.” 

Even in her agitation, Phoebe could not help 
remarking the calmness of Holgrave’s de¬ 
meanor. He appeared, it is true, to feel the 
whole awfulness of the Judge’s death, yet had 
received the fact into his mind without any 
mixture of surprise, but as an event preor¬ 
dained, happening inevitably, and so fitting 
442 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


itself into past occurrences that it could almost 
have been prophesied. 

“ Why have you not thrown open the doors, 
and called in witnesses ? ” inquired she with a 
painful shudder. “ It is terrible to be here 
alone ! ” 

“ But Clifford ! ” suggested the artist. “ Clif¬ 
ford and Hepzibah ! We must consider what 
is best to be done in their behalf. It is a 
wretched fatality that they should have disap¬ 
peared ! Their flight will throw the worst col¬ 
oring over this event of which it is susceptible. 
Yet how easy is the explanation, to those who 
know them ! Bewildered and terror-stricken 
by the similarity of this death to a former one, 
which was attended with such disastrous conse¬ 
quences to Clifford, they have had no idea but 
of removing themselves from the scene. How 
miserably unfortunate! Had Hepzibah but 
shrieked aloud, — had Clifford flung wide the 
door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheon’s death, 
— it would have been, however awful in itself, 
an event fruitful of good consequences to them. 
As I view it, it would have gone far towards 
obliterating the black stain on Clifford’s char¬ 
acter.” 

“And how,” asked Phoebe, “could any good 
come from what is so very dreadful ? ” 

“ Because,” said the artist, “if the matter can 
be fairly considered and candidly interpreted, it 
443 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


must be evident that Judge Pyncheon could 
not have come unfairly to his end. This mode 
of death has been an idiosyncrasy with his fam¬ 
ily, for generations past; not often occurring, 
indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attack¬ 
ing individuals about the Judge’s time of life, 
and generally in the tension of some mental 
crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. Old 
Maule’s prophecy was probably founded on a 
knowledge of this physical predisposition in the 
Pyncheon race. Now, there is a minute and 
almost exact similarity in the appearances con¬ 
nected with the death that occurred yesterday 
and those recorded of the death of Clifford’s 
uncle thirty years ago. It is true, there was a 
certain arrangement of circumstances, unneces¬ 
sary to be recounted, which made it possible — 
nay, as men look at these things, probable, or 
even certain — that old Jaffrey Pyncheon came 
to a violent death, and by Clifford’s hands.” 

“ Whence came those circumstances ? ” ex¬ 
claimed Phoebe; cc he being innocent, as we 
know him to be ! ” 

“ They were arranged,” said Holgrave,— 
cc at least such has long been my conviction, — 
they were arranged after the uncle’s death, and 
before it was made public, by the man who sits 
in yonder parlor. His own death, so like that 
former one, yet attended by none of those sus¬ 
picious circumstances, seems the stroke of God 
444 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


upon him, at once a punishment for his wick¬ 
edness, and making plain the innocence of Clif¬ 
ford. But this flight, — it distorts everything! 
He may be in concealment, near at hand. 
Could we but bring him back before the dis¬ 
covery of the Judge’s death, the evil might be 
rectified.” 

“We must not hide this thing a moment 
longer ! ” said Phoebe. “It is dreadful to keep 
it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent. 
God will make it manifest! Let us throw open 
the doors, and call all the neighborhood to see 
the truth ! ” 

“You are right, Phoebe,” rejoined Holgrave. 
“ Doubtless you are right.” 

Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which 
was proper to Phoebe’s sweet and order-loving 
character, at thus finding herself at issue with 
society, and brought in contact with an event 
that transcended ordinary rules. Neither was 
he in haste, like her, to betake himself within 
the precincts of common life. On the contrary, 
he gathered a wild enjoyment, — as it were, 
a flower of strange beauty, growing in a deso¬ 
late spot, and blossoming in the wind, — such 
a flower of momentary happiness he gathered 
from his present position. It separated Phoebe 
and himself from the world, and bound them 
to each other, by their exclusive knowledge of 
Judge Pyncheon’s mysterious death, and the 
445 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


counsel which they were forced to hold respect¬ 
ing it. The secret, so long as it should con¬ 
tinue such, kept them within the circle of a 
spell, a solitude in the midst of men, a remote¬ 
ness as entire as that of an island in mid-ocean ; 
once divulged, the ocean would flow betwixt 
them, standing on its widely sundered shores. 
Meanwhile, all the circumstances of their situ¬ 
ation seemed to draw them together; they were 
like two children who go hand in hand, press¬ 
ing closely to one another's side, through a 
shadow-haunted passage. The image of awful 
Death, which filled the house, held them united 
by his stiffened grasp. 

These influences hastened the development 
of emotions that might not otherwise have 
flowered so. Possibly, indeed, it had been 
Holgrave’s purpose to let them die in their 
undeveloped germs. 

“ Why do we delay so ? " asked Phoebe. 
“ This secret takes away my breath! Let us 
throw open the doors ! " 

“ In all our lives there can never come 
another moment like this ! ” said Holgrave. 
“ Phoebe, is it all terror? — nothing but terror? 
Are you conscious of no joy, as I am, that has 
made this the only point of life worth living 
for?" 

“It seems a sin," replied Phoebe, trembling, 
“ to think of joy at such a time ! " 

446 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


“ Could you but know, Phoebe, how it was 
with me the hour before you came ! ” exclaimed 
the artist. “ A dark, cold, miserable hour! 
The presence of yonder dead man threw a 
great black shadow over everything; he made 
the universe, so far as my perception could 
reach, a scene of guilt and of retribution more 
dreadful than the guilt. The sense of it took 
away my youth. I never hoped to feel young 
again ! The world looked strange, wild, evil, 
hostile ; my past life, so lonesome and dreary ; 
my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must 
mould into gloomy shapes ! But, Phoebe, you 
crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and 
joy came in with you! The black moment 
became at once a blissful one. It must not 
pass without the spoken word. I love you ! ” 
“ How can you love a simple girl like me?” 
asked Phoebe, compelled by his earnestness to 
speak. “You have many, many thoughts, 
with which I should try in vain to sympathize. 
And I,— I, too, — I have tendencies with 
which you would sympathize as little. That 
is less matter. But I have not scope enough 
to make you happy.” 

“ You are my only possibility of happiness! ” 
answered Holgrave. “ I have no faith in it, 
except as you bestow it on me! ” 

“ And then — I am afraid ! ” continued 
Phoebe, shrinking towards Holgrave, even 
447 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


while she told him so frankly the doubts with 
which he affected her. “ You will lead me out 
of my own quiet path. You will make me 
strive to follow you where it is pathless. I 
cannot do so. It is not my nature. I shall 
sink down and perish ! ” 

“ Ah, Phoebe! ” exclaimed Holgrave, with 
almost a sigh, and a smile that was burdened 
with thought. “It will be far otherwise than 
as you forebode. The world owes all its on¬ 
ward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy 
man inevitably confines himself within ancient 
limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter, 
it will be my lot to set out trees, to make 
fences, — perhaps, even, in due time, to build 
a house for another generation, — in a word, 
to conform myself to laws and the peaceful 
practice of society. Your poise will be more 
powerful than any oscillating tendency of 
mine.” 

“ I would not have it so! ” said Phoebe 
earnestly. 

“ Do you love me?” asked Holgrave. “ If 
we love one another, the moment has room 
for nothing more. Let us pause upon it, and 
be satisfied. Do you love me, Phoebe ? ” 
“You look into my heart,” said she, letting 
her eyes drop. “ You know I love you ! ” 
And it was in this hour, so full of doubt 
and awe, that the one miracle was wrought, 
448 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


without which every human existence is a 
blank. The bliss which makes all things true, 
beautiful, and holy shone around this youth 
and maiden. They were conscious of nothing 
sad nor old. They transfigured the earth, and 
made it Eden again, and themselves the two 
first dwellers in it. The dead man, so close 
beside them, was forgotten. At such a crisis, 
there is no death ; for immortality is revealed 
anew, and embraces everything in its hallowed 
atmosphere. 

But how soon the heavy earth-dream settled 
down again ! 

“ Hark ! ” whispered Phoebe. “ Somebody 
is at the street door ! ” 

“ Now let us meet the world! ” said Hol- 
grave. “ No doubt, the rumor of Judge Pyn- 
cheon’s visit to this house, and the flight of 
Hepzibah and Clifford, is about to lead to the 
investigation of the premises. We have no 
way but to meet it. Let us open the door at 
once.” 

But, to their surprise, before they could 
reach the street door, — even before they quit¬ 
ted the room in which the foregoing interview 
had passed, — they heard footsteps in the far¬ 
ther passage. The door, therefore, which they 
supposed to be securely locked,—which Hol- 
grave, indeed, had seen to be so, and at which 
Phoebe had vainly tried to enter, — must have 
449 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


been opened from without. The sound of 
footsteps was not harsh, bold, decided, and in¬ 
trusive, as the gait of strangers would naturally 
be, making authoritative entrance into a dwell¬ 
ing where they knew themselves unwelcome. 
It was feeble, as of persons either weak or 
weary; there was the mingled murmur of two 
voices, familiar to both the listeners. 

“ Can it be ? ” whispered Holgrave. 

“ It is they ! ” answered Phoebe. “ Thank 
God ! — thank God ! ” 

And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebe’s 
whispered ejaculation, they heard Hepzibah’s 
voice more distinctly. 

<c Thank God, my brother, we are at home! ” 
“ Well! — Yes ! —thank God ! ” responded 
Clifford. “ A dreary home, Hepzibah ! But 
you have done well to bring me hither ! Stay! 
That parlor door is open. I cannot pass by 
it! Let me go and rest me in the arbor, where 
I used, — oh, very long ago, it seems to me, 
after what has befallen us, -— where I used to 
be so happy with little Phoebe! ” 

But the house was not altogether so dreary 
as Clifford imagined it. They had not made 
many steps, — in truth, they were lingering in 
the entry, with the listlessness of an accom¬ 
plished purpose, uncertain what to do next, — 
when Phoebe ran to meet them. On behold¬ 
ing her, Hepzibah burst into tears. With all 
450 


THE FLOWER OF EDEN 


her might, she had staggered onward beneath 
the burden of grief and responsibility, until 
now that it was safe to fling it down. Indeed, 
she had not energy to fling it down, but had 
ceased to uphold it, and suffered it to press her 
to the earth. Clifford appeared the stronger 
of the two. 

“ It is our own little Phoebe! — Ah! and 
Holgrave with her,” exclaimed he, with a glance 
of keen and delicate insight, and a smile, beau¬ 
tiful, kind, but melancholy. “ I thought of 
you both, as we came down the street, and 
beheld Alice's Posies in full bloom. And so 
the flower of Eden has bloomed, likewise, in 
this old, darksome house to-day.” 

45i 


XXI 


THE DEPARTURE 

HE sudden death of so prominent a 



member of the social world as the 


Honorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon 


created a sensation (at least, in the circles more 
immediately connected with the deceased) which 
had hardly quite subsided in a fortnight. 

It may be remarked, however, that, of all the 
events which constitute a person’s biography, 
there is scarcely one — none, certainly, of any¬ 
thing like a similar importance — to which the 
world so easily reconciles itself as to his death. 
In most other cases and contingencies, the indi¬ 
vidual is present among us, mixed up with the 
daily revolution of affairs, and affording a defi¬ 
nite point for observation. At his decease, 
there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddy, 
— very small, as compared with the apparent 
magnitude of the ingurgitated object, — and a 
bubble or two, ascending out of the black depth 
and bursting at the surface. As regarded Judge 
Pyncheon, it seemed probable, at first blush, 
that the mode of his final departure might give 


452 


THE DEPARTURE 


him a larger and longer posthumous vogue than 
ordinarily attends the memory of a distinguished 
man. But when it came to be understood, on 
the highest professional authority, that the event 
was a natural, and — except for some unimpor¬ 
tant particulars, denoting a slight idiosyncrasy 
— by no means an unusual form of death, the 
public, with its customary alacrity, proceeded 
to forget that he had ever lived. In short, 
the honorable Judge was beginning to be a 
stale subject before half the country newspapers 
had found time to put their columns in mourn¬ 
ing, and publish his exceedingly eulogistic obit¬ 
uary. 

Nevertheless, creeping darkly through the 
places which this excellent person had haunted 
in his lifetime, there was a hidden stream of 
private talk, such as it would have shocked all 
decency to speak loudly at the street corners. 
It is very singular, how the fact of a man’s 
death often seems to give people a truer idea 
of his character, whether for good or evil, than 
they have ever possessed while he was living and 
acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact 
that it excludes falsehood, or betrays its empti¬ 
ness ; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, 
and dishonors the baser metal. Could the de¬ 
parted, whoever he may be, return in a week 
after his decease, he would almost invariably 
find himself at a higher or lower point than he 
453 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 

had formerly occupied, on the scale of public 
appreciation. But the talk, or scandal, to which 
we now allude, had reference to matters of no 
less old a date than the supposed murder, thirty 
or forty years ago, of the late Judge Pyncheon’s 
uncle. The medical opinion with regard to his 
own recent and regretted decease had almost 
entirely obviated the idea that a murder was 
committed in the former case. Yet, as the re¬ 
cord showed, there were circumstances irrefra- 
gably indicating that some person had gained 
access to old Jaffrey Pyncheon’s private apart¬ 
ments, at or near the moment of his death. His 
desk and private drawers, in a room contiguous 
to his bedchamber, had been ransacked ; money 
and valuable articles were missing; there was 
a bloody hand-print on the old man’s linen; 
and, by a powerfully welded chain of deductive 
evidence, the guilt of the robbery and apparent 
murder had been fixed on Clifford, then resid¬ 
ing with his uncle in the House of the Seven 
Gables. 

Whencesoever originating, there now arose 
a theory that undertook so to account for these 
circumstances as to exclude the idea of Clifford’s 
agency. Many persons affirmed that the his¬ 
tory and elucidation of the facts, long so mys¬ 
terious, had been obtained by the daguerreo- 
typist from one of those mesmerical seers 
who, nowadays, so strangely perplex the aspect 
454 


THE DEPARTURE 


of human affairs, and put everybody’s natural 
vision to the blush, by the marvels which they 
see with their eyes shut. 

According to this version of the story, Judge 
Pyncheon, exemplary as we have portrayed him 
in our narrative, was, in his youth, an appar¬ 
ently irreclaimable scapegrace. The brutish, 
the animal instincts, as is often the case, had 
been developed earlier than the intellectual qual¬ 
ities, and the force of character, for which he 
was afterwards remarkable. He had shown 
himself wild, dissipated, addicted to low plea¬ 
sures, little short of ruffianly in his propensities, 
and recklessly expensive, with no other resources 
than the bounty of his uncle. This course of 
conduct had alienated the old bachelor's affec¬ 
tion, once strongly fixed upon him. Now it is 
averred, — but whether on authority available? 
in a court of justice, we do not pretend to have 
investigated, — that the young man was tempted 
by the devil, one night, to search his uncle's 
private drawers, to which he had unsuspected 
means of access. While thus criminally occu¬ 
pied, he was startled by the opening of the 
chamber door. There stood old Jaffrey Pyn¬ 
cheon, in his nightclothes ! The surprise of 
such a discovery, his agitation, alarm, and hor¬ 
ror, brought on the crisis of a disorder to which 
the old bachelor had an hereditary liability; he 
seemed to choke with blood, and fell upon the 
455 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


floor, striking his temple a heavy blow against 
the corner of a table. What was to be done ? 
The old man was surely dead! Assistance would 
come too late ! What a misfortune, indeed, 
should it come too soon, since his reviving con¬ 
sciousness would bring the recollection of the 
ignominious offence which he had beheld his 
nephew in the very act of committing! 

But he never did revive. With the cool 
hardihood that always pertained to him, the 
young man continued his search of the drawers, 
and found a will, of recent date, in favor of 
Clifford, — which he destroyed, — and an older 
one, in his own favor, which he suffered to re¬ 
main. But before retiring, Jaffrey bethought 
himself of the evidence, in these ransacked 
drawers, that some one had visited the cham¬ 
ber with sinister purposes. Suspicion, unless 
averted, might fix upon the real offender. In 
the very presence of the dead man, therefore, 
he laid a scheme that should free himself at the 
expense of Clifford, his rival, for whose char¬ 
acter he had at once a contempt and a repug¬ 
nance. It is not probable, be it said, that he 
acted with any set purpose of involving Clifford 
in a charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle 
did not die by violence, it may not have oc¬ 
curred to him, in the hurry of the crisis, that 
such an inference might be drawn. But, when 
the affair took this darker aspect, Jaffrey’s pre- 
456 


THE DEPARTURE 

vious steps had already pledged him to those 
which remained. So craftily had he arranged 
the circumstances, that, at Clifford’s trial, his 
cousin hardly found it necessary to swear to 
anything false, but only to withhold the one 
decisive explanation, by refraining to state what 
he had himself done and witnessed. 

Thus Jaffrey Pyncheon’s inward criminality, 
as regarded Clifford, was, indeed, black and 
damnable; while its mere outward show and 
positive commission was the smallest that could 
possibly consist with so great a sin. This is 
just the sort of guilt that a man of eminent 
respectability finds it easiest to dispose of. It 
was suffered to fade out of sight or be reckoned 
a venial matter, in the Honorable Judge Pyn¬ 
cheon’s long subsequent survey of his own life. 
He shuffled it aside, among the forgotten and 
forgiven frailties of his youth, and seldom 
thought of it again. 

We leave the Judge to his repose. He could 
not be styled fortunate at the hour of death. 
Unknowingly, he was a childless man, while 
striving to add more wealth to his only child’s 
inheritance. Hardly a week after his decease, 
one of the Cunard steamers brought intelligence 
of the death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheon’s 
son, just at the point of embarkation for his 
native land. By this misfortune Clifford be¬ 
came rich ; so did Hepzibah; so did our little 
457 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


village maiden, and, through her, that sworn 
foe of wealth and all manner of conservatism, 
— the wild reformer, — Holgrave ! 

It was now far too late in Clifford’s life for 
the good opinion of society to be worth the 
trouble and anguish of a formal vindication. 
What he needed was the love of a very few; 
not the admiration, or even the respect, of the 
unknown many. The latter might probably 
have been won for him, had those on whom the 
guardianship of his welfare had fallen deemed 
it advisable to expose Clifford to a miserable 
resuscitation of past ideas, when the condition 
of whatever comfort he might expect lay in the 
calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as he 
had suffered, there is no reparation. The piti¬ 
able mockery of it, which the world might have 
been ready enough to offer, coming so long 
after the agony had done its utmost work, would 
have been fit only to provoke bitterer laughter 
than poor Clifford was ever capable of. It is a 
truth (and it would be a very sad one but for 
the higher hopes which it suggests) that no great 
mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mor¬ 
tal sphere, is ever really set right. Time, the 
continual vicissitude of circumstances, and the 
invariable inopportunity of death, render it im¬ 
possible. If, after long lapse of years, the right 
seems to be in our power, we find no niche to 
set it in. The better remedy is for the sufferer 
458 


THE DEPARTURE 


to pass on, and leave what he once thought his 
irreparable ruin far behind him. 

The shock of Judge Pyncheon’s death had a 
permanently invigorating and ultimately bene¬ 
ficial effect on Clifford. That strong and pon¬ 
derous man had been Clifford’s nightmare. 
There was no free breath to be drawn, within 
the sphere of so malevolent an influence. The 
first effect of freedom, as we have witnessed in 
Clifford’s aimless flight, was a tremulous exhil¬ 
aration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink 
into his former intellectual apathy. He never, 
it is true, attained to nearly the full measure 
of what might have been his faculties. But he 
recovered enough of them partially to light up 
his character, to display some outline of the 
marvellous grace that was abortive in it, and to 
make him the object of no less deep, although 
less melancholy interest than heretofore. He 
was evidently happy. Could we pause to give 
another picture of his daily life, with all the 
appliances now at command to gratify his in¬ 
stinct for the Beautiful, the garden scenes, that 
seemed so sweet to him, would look mean and 
trivial in comparison. 

Very soon after their change of fortune, Clif¬ 
ford, Hepzibah, and little Phoebe, with the ap¬ 
proval of the artist, concluded to remove from 
the dismal old House of the Seven Gables, and 
take up their abode, for the present, at the ele- 
459 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


gant country-seat of the late Judge Pyncheon. 
Chanticleer and his family had already been 
transported thither, where the two hens had 
forthwith begun an indefatigable process of egg- 
laying, with an evident design, as a matter of 
duty and conscience, to continue their illustrious 
breed under better auspices than for a century 
past. On the day set for their departure, the 
principal personages of our story, including 
good Uncle Venner, were assembled in the 
parlor. 

“ The country-house is certainly a very fine 
one, so far as the plan goes,” observed Hol- 
grave, as the party were discussing their future 
arrangements. “ But I wonder that the late 
Judge — being so opulent, and with a reason¬ 
able prospect of transmitting his wealth to de¬ 
scendants of his own — should not have felt the 
propriety of embodying so excellent a piece of 
domestic architecture in stone, rather than in 
wood. Then, every generation of the family 
might have altered the interior, to suit its 
own taste and convenience ; while the exterior, 
through the lapse of years, might have been 
adding venerableness to its original beauty, and 
thus giving that impression of permanence 
which I consider essential to the happiness of 
any one moment.” 

“ Why,” cried Phoebe, gazing into the ar¬ 
tist's face with infinite amazement, “ how won- 
460 


THE DEPARTURE 


derfully your ideas are changed ! A house of 
stone, indeed! It is but two or three weeks 
ago that you seemed to wish people to live in 
something as fragile and temporary as a bird’s- 
nest! ” 

fc Ah, Phoebe, I told you how it would be ! ” 
said the artist, with a half-melancholy laugh. 
“You find me a conservative already! Little 
did I think ever to become one. It is espe¬ 
cially unpardonable in this dwelling of so much 
hereditary misfortune, and under the eye of 
yonder portrait of a model conservative, who, 
in that very character, rendered himself so long 
the evil destiny of his race.” 

“ That picture ! ” said Clifford, seeming to 
shrink from its stern glance. “ Whenever I 
look at it, there is an old dreamy recollection 
haunting me, but keeping just beyond the grasp 
of my mind. Wealth, it seems to say ! — 
boundless wealth ! — unimaginable wealth ! I 
could fancy that, when I was a child, or a youth, 
that portrait had spoken, and told me a rich 
secret, or had held forth its hand, with the writ¬ 
ten record of hidden opulence. But those old 
matters are so dim with me, nowadays ! What 
could this dream have been ? ” 

“ Perhaps I can recall it,” answered Hol- 
grave. “ See! There are a hundred chances 
to one that no person, unacquainted with the 
secret, would ever touch this spring.” 

461 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


“ A secret spring ! ” cried Clifford. “ Ah, I 
remember now ! I did discover it, one summer 
afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming 
about the house, long, long ago. But the mys¬ 
tery escapes me.” 

The artist put his finger on the contrivance 
to which he had referred. In former days, the 
effect would probably have been to cause the 
picture to start forward. But, in so long a 
period of concealment, the machinery had been 
eaten through with rust; so that at Holgrave’s 
pressure, the portrait, frame and all, tumbled 
suddenly from its position, and lay face down¬ 
ward on the floor. A recess in the wall was 
thus brought to light, in which lay an object so 
covered with a century's dust that it could not 
immediately be recognized as a folded sheet of 
parchment. Holgrave opened it, and displayed 
an ancient deed, signed with the hieroglyphics 
of several Indian sagamores, and conveying to 
Colonel Pyncheon and his heirs, forever, a vast 
extent of territory at the Eastward. 

“ This is the very parchment, the attempt 
to recover which cost the beautiful Alice Pyn¬ 
cheon her happiness and life,” said the artist, 
alluding to his legend. “ It is what the Pyn- 
cheons sought in vain, while it was valuable ; 
and now that they find the treasure, it has long 
been worthless.” 

“ Poor Cousin Jaffrey ! This is what de- 
462 


THE DEPARTURE 


ceived him,” exclaimed Hepzibah. “ When 
they were young together, Clifford probably 
made a kind of fairy-tale of this discovery. He 
was always dreaming hither and thither about 
the house, and lighting up its dark corners with 
beautiful stories. And poor Jaffrey, who took 
hold of everything as if it were real, thought 
my brother had found out his uncle’s wealth. 
He died with this delusion in his mind! ” 

“ But,” said Phoebe, apart to Holgrave, “how 
came you to know the secret ? ” 

“ My dearest Phoebe,” said Holgrave, “how 
will it please you to assume the name of Maule? 
As for the secret, it is the only inheritance that 
has come down to me from my ancestors. You 
should have known sooner (only that I was 
afraid of frightening you away) that, in this long 
drama of wrong and retribution, I represent 
the old wizard, and am probably as much a 
wizard as ever he was. The son of the ex¬ 
ecuted Matthew Maule, while building this 
house, took the opportunity to construct that 
recess, and hide away the Indian deed, on which 
depended the immense land-claim of the Pyn- 
cheons. Thus they bartered their Eastern ter¬ 
ritory for Maule’s garden ground.” 

“ And now,” said Uncle Venner, “ I sup¬ 
pose their whole claim is not worth one man’s 
share in my farm yonder! ” 

“ Uncle Venner,” cried Phoebe, taking the 
4^3 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


patched philosopher's hand, “you must never 
talk any more about your farm ! You shall 
never go there, as long as you live ! There is 
a cottage in our new garden,— the prettiest 
little yellowish-brown cottage you ever saw ; 
and the sweetest-looking place, for it looks just 
as if it were made of gingerbread, — and we are 
going to fit it up and furnish it, on purpose for 
you. And you shall do nothing but what you 
choose, and shall be as happy as the day is 
long, and shall keep Cousin Clifford in spirits 
with the wisdom and pleasantness which is 
always dropping from your lips ! ” 

“Ah! my dear child," quoth good Uncle 
Venner, quite overcome, “ if you were to speak 
to. a young man as you do to an old one, his 
chance of keeping his heart another minute 
would not be worth one of the buttons on my 
waistcoat ! And — soul alive ! — that great 
sigh, which you made me heave, has burst off 
the very last of them ! But, never mind ! It 
was the happiest sigh I ever did heave; and 
it seems as if I must have drawn in a gulp of 
heavenly breath, to make it with. Well, well, 
Miss Phoebe ! They ’ll miss me in the gardens 
hereabouts, and round by the back doors; 
and Pyncheon Street, I’m afraid, will hardly 
look the same without old Uncle Venner, who 
remembers it with a mowing field on one side, 
and the garden of the Seven Gables on the 
464 


THE DEPARTURE 

other. But either I must go to your country- 
seat, or you must come to my farm, — that's 
one of two things certain; and I leave you to 
choose which! ” 

c< Oh, come with us, by all means, Uncle 
Venner! ” said Clifford, who had a remarkable 
enjoyment of the old man's mellow, quiet, and 
simple spirit. “ I want you always to be within 
five minutes' saunter of my chair. You are the 
only philosopher I ever knew of whose wis¬ 
dom has not a drop of bitter essence at the 
bottom!" 

“ Dear me!" cried Uncle Venner, beginning 
partly to realize what manner of man he was. 
“And yet folks used to set me down among 
the simple ones, in my younger days! But I 
suppose I am like a Roxbury russet, — a great 
deal the better, the longer I can be kept. Yes; 
and my words of wisdom, that you and Phoebe 
tell me of, are like the golden dandelions, which 
never grow in the hot months, but may be seen 
glistening among the withered grass, and under 
the dry leaves, sometimes as late as December. 
And you are welcome, friends, to my mess of 
dandelions, if there were twice as many ! ” 

A plain, but handsome, dark-green barouche 
had now drawn up in front of the ruinous por¬ 
tal of the old mansion-house. The party came 
forth, and (with the exception of good Uncle 
Venner, who was to follow in a few days) pro- 
465 


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 


ceeded to take their places. They were chat¬ 
ting and laughing very pleasantly together; 
and — as proves to be often the case, at mo¬ 
ments when we ought to palpitate with sensi¬ 
bility — Clifford and Hepzibah bade a final 
farewell to the abode of their forefathers, with 
hardly more emotion than if they had made it 
their arrangement to return thither at tea-time. 
Several children were drawn to the spot by so 
unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of 
gray horses. Recognizing little Ned Higgins 
among them, Hepzibah put her hand into her 
pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest 
and staunchest customer, with silver enough to 
people the Domdaniel cavern of his interior 
with as various a procession of quadrupeds as 
passed into the ark. 

Two men were passing, just as the barouche 
drove off. 

“Well, Dixey,” said one of them, “what do 
you think of this ? My wife kept a cent-shop 
three months, and lost five dollars on her out¬ 
lay. Old Maid Pyncheon has been in trade 
just about as long, and rides off in her carriage 
with a couple of hundred thousand, — reckon¬ 
ing her share, and Clifford’s, and Phoebe’s, — 
and some say twice as much ! If you choose 
to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are 
to take it as the will of Providence, why, I can’t 
exactly fathom it! ” 


466 



THE DEPARTURE 


“ Pretty good business ! ” quoth the saga¬ 
cious Dixey, — cc pretty good business ! ” 

Maule’s well, all this time, though left in 
solitude, was throwing up a succession of ka¬ 
leidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might 
have seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of 
Hepzibah and Clifford, and the descendant of 
the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, 
over whom he had thrown Love’s web of sor¬ 
cery. The Pyncheon Elm, moreover, with 
what foliage the September gale had spared to it, 
whispered unintelligible prophecies. And wise 
Uncle Venner, passing slowly from the ruinous 
porch, seemed to hear a strain of music, and 
fancied that sweet Alice Pyncheon — after wit¬ 
nessing these deeds, this bygone woe and this 
present happiness, of her kindred mortals — 
had given one farewell touch of a spirit’s joy 
upon her harpsichord, as she floated heaven¬ 
ward from the House of the Seven Gables ! 

467 


(£be fitoerj&ibe pxe0 

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